I thought I was afraid of the crowd.
Turns out
I was afraid of myself.
The version of me
that doesn’t ask permission.
The version of me
that doesn’t need a plan.
The version of me
that hears the bass
and chooses movement
over understanding.
For a moment,
I disappeared.
Not in a sad way.
Not in a lost way.
In the way a wave disappears
when it remembers
it was always the ocean.
Bodies collided.
The music roared.
The ground shook beneath us.
And somehow,
in the middle of all that chaos,
I felt more still
than I had in years.
No future.
No past.
No grief.
No expectations.
Just heartbeat.
Just sweat.
Just sound.
Just now.
I entered the pit carrying
every version of myself
that was too scared to jump.
I left carrying none of them.
Only momentum.
Only freedom.
Only the strange realization
that being alive
was never supposed to be observed.
It was supposed to be lived.