I live twice the minutes compressed into one

I live twice the minutes compressed into one 

and I take long strides, 

strategically pull my eyelids down 

let my eyes slide to the deserted side,

fast streets and faces pass like apparitions. I have no qualms 

until the life slows down. 

In crowded markets of the city, 

I am lost long before

mother told me to buy the groceries 

so I make up amusing stories, 

she believes them all, but never when I tell her to see 

my pounding heart operating my legs 

in ways that they flee from the rest of me, 

The road to the school scribbled in detours, 

in classrooms, well, there I am just too exposed, 

like the fresh batch of flowers 

afraid someone might pluck them off, 

you might ask why 

and my english teacher would reply “He’s just shy”. 

Perhaps if she saw me lit up like a Christmas tree, 

my body that folds 

like the ends of the shirt sleeve that meet 

she would disagree. 

I don’t get to rest in the drawer anyway, bad luck, 

there’s maths, then physics and I am already sick 

with cramps in my stomach, 

teacher please, don’t ask me to recite Ozymandias, 

don’t you see 

I am already dust from the inside, 

and you guys 

do not shout out my name, 

what’s the matter with you 

why do you all talk so loud? 

I’d melt away before your vanilla ice cream, 

let me imprison myself in your giggles 

but don’t burn my frail shell in the public eye, 

all my parts are tickled 

by strange gaze and stranger voices, 

one springs to the left, other to the right 

and rest walk clumsily 

back home to hide, 

When the city sleeps at night 

I whirl in worries, in hazy conversations yet to take place 

I author the play that is my future and grow my years in same loops

to turn at parties in college, my lips clasped too tight, 

I wonder, too little too much, what’s the duration of a perfect smile.

Soon the weather changes one floor above my eyesight, 

everything too loud and quiet at once, 

no one can hear, probably it’s music, 

but here, it’s noise,

my heartbeat parading its heavy foot all over my body 

“You too?”, in a slurry tone, they’d ask me. 

maybe, who knows. 

maybe my social anxiety is a perfect ecstasy

to those who peer inside,

but I think it won’t be, 

if I wore my mind outside.