I could fall a hundred times
if no one saw it.
Spill the whole bowl of effort on the floor
and laugh,
if no one was watching.
But with eyes?
I flinch before I even move.
I double-check certainty
until it’s a cage.
Maybe I’m not scared of getting it wrong
just scared of you
seeing me get it wrong.
Of the way silence stretches
after a wrong answer.
The pause.
The sideways glance.
The subtle note someone files under
“not that smart.”
Isn’t it strange?
How the sting isn’t from the fall
but from the imagined commentary?
Not the act,
but the audit.
Not failure,
but failure witnessed.
We don’t fear the mess.
We fear the mirrors.
(please clap)
Myra Arora is a high school senior from New Delhi who writes poetry in lowercase and lives life mostly in italics. While her primary work spans AI research, social entrepreneurship, and editorial leadership, poetry is her pause—her way of navigating the unspoken parts of being sixteen and hyper-aware. Her work aims to sit somewhere between vulnerability and observation, laced with introspection, dry humor, and a little digital-age existentialism.