Butterflies spring up and scatter. A billion party poppers explode inside your stomach; their curly tissue paper innards flying about, spontaneously catching on fire. A tarry stickiness slides down your throat and traps anything good or clever you might have thought to say, dragging it back down inside of you to be lost forever. These clever thoughts are replaced with endless, awkward silences, insane laughter that sounds like it’s from another world, and stammered, idiotic thoughts that you never would have uttered in your right mind, and now cannot gather back into your mouth to be unsaid.

Under normal circumstances you are Beyoncé, whipping a baseball bat into the window of a car. You are Hillary Clinton calmly taking her dogs for a walk in Central Park the day after the 2016 election results. You are every inch the confident woman Amy Poehler wants you to be according to her book Yes, Please. Instead, a simple hello or 30 second conversation has you morphing into the human equivalent of a brightly colored Weeble Wobble, swaying gently with a stupid smile on your face, silently screaming and questioning your existence.

There is nothing you can do about it when someone accidentally kicks the Achilles Heel you didn’t know you had. Every ounce of your chill is dissolved. Luckily, the butterflies, the party poppers, the flames, the tar, and the wobble of a Weeble all stay hidden within the imploding you. Nobody knows, including the one who got your heel.

Luciana, 29