The index says twenty-two. Extreme fear,
which is just a number pretending to be a feeling,
which is just a feeling pretending it isn't contagious.

My grandmother taught me red was luck.
Red envelope under the pillow, red string on the wrist,
red candles at the altar for anyone who needed watching over.
Nobody told her the charts would learn the color too,
would paint every falling thing the same shade
as the thing she used to keep us safe.

Three quarters bleeding out and still
I check the app the way she checked the almanac,
looking for the day the number turns.
GN to the group chat that used to say WAGMI
and now just says nothing, hearts on old messages,
a museum of confidence.

Somewhere a nonprofit with a name like a prayer
is quietly shaking hands with a quarter of the world's money,
patient as a tide going out to come back bigger.
They are not afraid. They were never afraid.
Fear is a retail condition, like motion sickness,
like getting attached to something that was built to move.

I am still holding what I'm holding.
Not because I trust the number
but because my grandmother never sold the red string either,
just let it fray on her wrist for years,
called it faith, called it something
you don't take off just because
it stopped feeling lucky.