I fell like silence breaking,
a scream that never made it out,
the wind folding around me
like arms that never did.

Now, I wake in a room
stitched with wires and cold light,
where the air tastes of bleach
and every surface hums with life
that isn’t mine.

The machine speak in beeps
soft, exact, unfeeling.
Beep.
I’m still here.
Beep.
I failed.
Beep.
I failed.

They say the sound is good.
They say the beeping means I’m stable.
But it only reminds me
that death didn’t want me.
That earth opened its arms
and still let me go.

The noise wraps around my head
like a shroud of neon thread.
It winds through the hollow
in my chest,
settling where the fall had emptied me.

I hate its voice,
its small, insistent hope.
It has no right to be so calm
when everything inside me
is still falling.

I close my eyes,
but there’s no peace.
Just the beep,
beep,
beep,
dragging me back
from the edge I chose.

And I want to ask the silence
why it let me go.
Why it handed me back
to this world of white and wires,
to these strangers with clipped voices
and pity in their eyes.

But silence won’t speak here.
Only the machines do.

Beep.
I’m still alive.
Beep.
I’m still alive.
Beep.
God, why?

Sugar. Honey. Iced. Tea.
They mutter it when they’re too scared to come at me. It’s cute, really.. how they smile and throw shade, and then act shocked when I don’t sit there and fade.

S is for Sugar, like their condescending tone, when they joke in class and won’t leave me alone. “You’re so weird,” they say, with that laugh on loop. So I smile back, and plot how to flip the whole group.

H is for Honey, that sickly sweet lie, “We’re just teasing!” Nah, you’re asking to cry. Keep poking, keep playing, keep running that mouth, but don’t act surprised when I knock you clean out.

I is for Iced, like my knuckles post swing, and the silence that follows when I end the whole thing. I don’t fight often, but I do fight loud. Enough to make the fake girls rethink their crowd.

T is for Tea, verbal or literal, either I sip it, or I serve it criminal. Sometimes it’s words, sharp as a blade, sometimes its fists when the message won’t fade.

Sugar Honey Iced Tea, such a posh way to swear.

Perfect for school halls, for pretending to care.
Because if I said what I really meant?
I’d be sent home, labelled violent or bent.

But don’t be fooled by the silence I keep.
Every insult’s recorded, every smirk runs deep.
I give as good as I get, and sometimes worse.
In this uniform jungle, I don’t just curse.

So yeah, bully me. Try it, see what you earn.
You’ll get banter back, or maybe a burn.
And if all else fails and words fall flat?
Well.. Sugar. Honey. Iced. That.

Step 1: Smile.
Step 2: Forget why.
Step 3: Keep your voice steady
when your soul is not.
Step 4: Pretend it’s fine.
(Everyone else is.)

Step 5: Fold your feelings
into paper birds.
Set them loose.
Watch them burn mid-air.
Clap softly.
Repeat.

There is no final step.
You just keep going
until you don’t know
what breaking feels like anymore.