My Mind Is Too Fast

Dear Delyara, Too fast to rest. Too fast to trust. Too fast to wait for the facts. A child is late by five minutes and my mind has already built three disasters. A message arrives and I’ve already heard rejection in it before I’ve even opened it. A symptom appears and my body is halfway through the future before the present has finished happening. I am exhausted by my own speed. The outside of me still looks composed. That’s the trap. People think panic has one face. It doesn’t. Sometimes it looks like a woman making dinner while privately bracing for six imaginary catastrophes at once.