Standing Alone in What I Know

She said it like it was a fact.

"I don't think that actually happened."

Not cruel. Just certain.

Like my own memory was up for debate

and she'd reviewed the evidence.

Now I'm alone in what I know.

Standing in a room full of people

who heard her certainty,

who heard my voice falter,

who decided right then

that doubt was the reasonable position.

The thing that happened still left marks.

It still shaped the years that came after.

But now it lives only in me,

a wound that no one else can see,

which means maybe it's not real,

which means maybe I'm not real,

which means maybe I should stop

saying it out loud.

Maybe I should keep it small and secret,

treat it like something to be ashamed of,

like it didn't happen in the world

but only in my head,

where things are easier to dismiss.

Easier to doubt.

Easier to leave standing alone.