Too Loud, Too Much

Too Loud, Too Much I come in loud, not because I want to steal the room, but because I’m scared it won’t notice I’m here if I don’t. I laugh too hard, talk too fast, say too many things all at once and then circle back, just in case the first time didn’t land right. I know I’m a lot, like a run-on sentence that never knows where to stop, always spilling into the next thought, too much, too fast, no pause for air or space. I’ve heard it in the quiet that follows my leaving, seen it in the eyes of people who wish I came with a volume dial, a mute button, a way to tone it down. But I don’t know how to be soft without fading, don’t know how to be quiet without feeling like I’ve disappeared. So I keep filling the space with words, with sound, with me because maybe if I’m loud enough, bright enough, present enough, someone will hear this endless stream of me and not wish for silence in return but see that I’m not just noise, that I’m the echo of a voice longing to matter, to be seen not as too much, but as finally enough and maybe, just maybe, this run-on sentence will be the one that doesn’t need to end…