The Girl with Alarms Instead of Organs
Inside her ribcage: a heartbeat that warned, not warmed.
Some girls get to breathe.
Some learn to brace.
This poem came out of the part of me that’s always on alert.
The part that doesn’t rest, even when I’m lying still.
The part that doesn’t know the war ended — because my body never got the memo.
Poem V lives inside Section I: The Flesh Remembers What It Was Buried With —
a section about skin, nerves, and bones that misfire like old machinery.
It’s for the ones who can’t just calm down
because their heart isn't wired for peace —
it's wired for warning.
This is about living in a body that alarms instead of feels.
Where the stomach tenses before the thought arrives.
Where the lungs hyperventilate just to survive a quiet room.
Where panic is not an event — it's a rhythm.
And when they opened her up to search for answers,
they didn’t find trauma.
They found wires.
Live, sparking, twitching.
Holding her together in place of rest.
This is not metaphor.
This is how it feels.
The Girl with Alarms Instead of Organs
when her heart stopped, something else kept moving
⸻
Her heart didn’t beat — it detonated,
every pulse a countdown she could never stop,
a rhythm of emergency thudding beneath her ribs
as if her blood knew something she didn’t.
Her stomach coiled like a trap set hours ago,
waiting for impact that never came,
tightening, tightening,
like it was bracing for a scream no one else could hear.
Her lungs performed like they were being watched,
always just on the edge of enough air,
every breath an audition for survival,
and still, she felt like she was suffocating on nothing.
And when they peeled her open to find the cause,
they didn’t find fear —
just wires, frayed and twitching,
and a heartbeat that blinked back.
Theme: Panic physiology. Chronic hypervigilance. Internal alarms.
For: The ones who passed every test… except the one for peace.
If you’ve ever been told "you’re fine" when you’re clearly not,
if your body keeps score in secret,
if you’ve survived by tension —
this one is yours.
And yes — I see the way you’re still breathing like it’s a performance.
So am I.
—
© 2025 Solena Vyhra. All rights reserved.
This work is part of the poetry collection The House of Collapse.
No part of this poem, including text or visual design, may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author.
For inquiries, permissions, or collaborations, please contact: solenavyhra@gmail.com
Illustration and layout by Solena Vyhra.
Typography: Special Elite (poem titles), Signature (author tag).
Published on Substack via Where Silence Becomes Ritual.
