Hysteria Apr 2026

In the waiting room, you sit perfectly still. Your spine is a ruler. Your ankles are crossed. You smile when the receptionist calls your name. But behind your teeth, a choir is screaming. It is the sound of every errand you ever ran on four hours of sleep. The sound of every calm down whispered into your ear like a lullaby for a bomb.

Then it drops into the chest, where it nests between the ribs. It has no name yet. The doctors would call it wandering womb , an old ghost of a diagnosis, as if the body’s own longing could be a kind of demon. But you know better. It is simply the truth that would not fit into the silence. Hysteria

And for one terrifying, glorious moment—you were the most honest thing in the room. In the waiting room, you sit perfectly still