There was a twinge in my chest yesterday

There was a twinge in my chest yesterday.

Small. The kind of pain you ignore.

But I picked up my phone anyway

and searched for the answer. I needed to know for sure.

The results came back like a map

of every way that I could die.

Three different conditions. One was a trap—

the kind that gets you when you least try.

I closed the app.

But the knowledge stayed.

Now every breath feels like proof.

Every heartbeat sounds like a confession.

My heart is no longer aloof—

it's the subject of my obsession.

I could see a doctor.

Could get told I'm being dramatic.

Could get told it's just my nerves, erratic.

Could get told it's nothing.

But I'd know better.

I'd know what the search results said.

I'd know my chest had sent a letter

and the internet had answered it instead.

There's a particular kind of dread

in knowing things you shouldn't know.

In reading words that fill you with dread

and understanding just enough to make them grow.

I'm not dying.

Probably.

But I know now that I could be.

And that knowledge sits inside me, like debris.