Quiet Him

[VERSE 1]
I always thought I'd have a sentence ready for this exact moment,
some elegant, unbothered line to prove I hadn't lost my footing.
I did not have a sentence ready. I did not have my footing either.
The stairs took it from me, one jarring impact at a time, before I'd said a single word.
[CHORUS]
Quiet him, someone said, like I was a sound instead of a person,
and a hand did the rest of the talking my mouth was too breathless to manage.