The silence after they ask where you live isn't just a pause. it's a goddamn minefield, every second a choice between a fabricated normalcy and the absolute unraveling. it's the taste of bile in the back of my throat, trying to swallow the truth down before it spills out, before they see the flicker in my eyes that says 'everywhere and nowhere.' they don't want an answer, not really. they want a confirmation of their own comfortable assumptions, and i have to provide it, again and again, like a trained animal. the pressure behind my eyes, sometimes it feels like it could just shatter everything.