The Weight I Carry When Eyes Look Too Hard

I notice eyes before words. They land on me like pressure I cannot hold back. I try to stay still inside myself, but my thoughts move faster than my body can follow. People see the movement, the interruption, the missed step, and I feel their expectation before they speak it. It sits on my shoulders like something I should already know how to lift. I do not choose the scatter in my mind. It comes like the weather I cannot control. Still, I try. I try harder than they can see. I want to meet their gaze without fear, to answer without searching for the missing thread in my thoughts. When I fall short, it is not from lack of trying, but from a mind that runs in many directions at once. I carry the hope of being understood in the same space where I am being measured.

I am not careless; my mind just arrives everywhere at once.

The voice of ADHD