I do not know what it is they do not wish to make me feel-
Awkward? Embarrassed?
Sad, perhaps. And
too
tired.
But I am only sick of some of the alien mental fodder.

Do you know the paths well enough
to see an entrance to a cave
in which I am alone?

And are you brave enough to bear
the questions whose answers
would call you inside?
To use your hands to feel what
is masked from the light?

I am no prowling mountain lion, hunched in expectation.
I, however, am excellent at echolocation-

I could sing you a symphony!
And it could reverberate.

But I am only asked one query today-

“How are you feeling?
Are you doing okay?”

Where “meaningfully asked” means I’m given the task
of translating a foreign tongue
where things like “having a seizure”
don’t have to be said.

But I am not so coy as to code-
Not in here, not this day.
I am of the screamers, just searching for an echo.

Always the second-
And when’s there a third?
To call my malady by its name.