Some things are easy.
I say that a lot—
life is easy,
and I mean it
when the room is quiet.
But other things—
the things with teeth,
a smile, and always something chipper to say.
I keep them under glass.
Those are hard.
The chains I put them in.
But I can’t let them out.
It’s a glass floor I pretend isn’t there.
Like softening corners
before corners cut me.
Like holding one thought
without letting it burn the house down.
Like recognizing who loves me
before they leave.
I’ve never known how to pick a friend.
They flicker like electricity—
I forgot to pay the bill,
but I also forgot to check on them.
What I was supposed to do
drives by, egging my home,
a reminder I’m not spirited enough.
I had no “Prom” night.
So every day they throw spirit like it’s mine.
Sometimes it’s fluorescent,
suburban joy that drives by.
They raise their hands and wedge in a smile—
I don’t wave.
I never learned how.
Instead, I win.
Different games.
They say, the harder ones.
But I can see these rules.
I walk into rooms and shadder them open,
yet I don’t know how to sit
with soft hands
and let the day hold mine.
The world is simple,
except when it isn’t.
And when it isn’t,
I close the latch and lock it with a key.
I disappear into work like it’s holy.
And every night I come home
to a house built like a chapel—
my footsteps echo on glass,
the floor polished clear
so even I can see God’s regret
reflected back at me.
Below it, the basement breathes—
faint and warm, something’s still alive.
Prom dresses in plastic.
Silverware set for ghosts.
A voice that knew when to ask, “Are you okay?”
Friendships slowly wilt as lilies in a vase,
milestones wrapped in dust while suffocating
from ribbons I’ve tied too tight.
I walk across it,
toes curled against thoughts of beneath—
Everything, not to look.
But when I fall,
I fall harder than the coffee.
My knees hit first.
Then my hands, pressed to the glass,
as if I might pray
to what I locked beneath me.
I was already beneath myself,
pressed against regret.
Staring into the sealed room
where the world’s wished versions of me
rot politely in corners.
I forget how to keep the doors closed.
Soon all I taste is metal.
I’ve bitten down too hard
on what I’ve always swallowed.
It is easy.
And it is not.
And I don’t know how to hold both open—
the door, and my breath—
without cutting both hands open.
s.g
xo,
Sheridan Guerrette
The Official Poetry Collection of WSS
