"Hospital"

Everything feels well-rehearsed when it shouldn't. One word sets everything off like water rippling at the slightest touch of a finger. Clothes in a bag, a book for company, my heart in the deepest pocket. I know exactly what to bring, what to expect. There is calculated alarm, an undercurrent pushed further back in favor of rationality, of coldness. My face is on autopilot -- smiles for everyone else, a line for others, a mask for myself. I am walking as fast as my feet could carry me through the sights and sounds so familiar. Through beeps and polite whispers, through the harsh white lights. I am walking as fast as my pocket would let me even as it threatens to burst at the seams.

But I am never fast enough.