"Sometimes It Gets a Little Crowded" by Nathan Merrill

Sometimes it gets a little crowded, and I clamor for space. Sometimes it gets noisy, busy, and I feel the defensive spring in me coil, and I fear its sudden release, whatever that may look like: the snap judgment in desperate search for release, relief, is perhaps without exception a dangerous one.

It gets a little crowded, I notice. The room fills gradually with personalities that are foreign to me; the supposedly voluminous thought-space can swell and ache so quickly with guests, some of them jostling for acknowledgement, some doing violent demonstrations, demanding to be acted upon.