This morning, my stomach turned with unease.
I reached for comfort, but met critique.
She pointed to the cake,
as if sweetness could explain the storm inside me.

I raised my voice — a flash of heat,
diarrhoea, not defiance.
But she spoke of old tests,
of how the doctors saw nothing.
"Habitual," she called it.
As if my body lies.

She warned me again —
"If you shout, I’ll tell everyone."
Breakfast became a court,
her voice, a gavel.

Outside, the world offered no pause.
A man mirrored the way others sit beside me —
awkward, angled, not quite here.
A cyclist's bell pierced the air again and again,
a sound I couldn’t outrun.

A woman’s gaze lingered
as I walked behind her.
I felt seen,
but not in the way I needed.

Then — the tease.
Another moment stolen
by someone who finds laughter
in making me move
when the bus hasn’t come.

My day begins not with peace,
but with noise and watching eyes.
Still, I stand.