No Applause

Their faces
are younger than my scars,
but carry the same weight.

Standing at the front,
paper in hand,
I start to read,
then stop.

I crumple the paper,
speak like one of them.

I do not tell them
it gets better.
I tell them
it gets different.

That breathing
can become a habit again.
That a body is stubborn
about what it remembers.

Some of them don't look at me.
Some of them look too hard
for answers I don't have.
All of them are still here,
and that's not nothing.

I leave space
between my words
let the echo carry them
before the next breath

When I finish,
there is no applause.

That's how I know
I said it right.