Do Contained Bombs Still Explode?

If a tree falls and no one is around to heart it,

Did it even make a sound?

Things happening behind closed doors

Away from human perception

Are they even real?

What is reality to begin with?

An extended figment of our imagination

Reality exists in out head

Created from things we see

And things we don’t

Things we choose to believe

And things we don’t

If we never saw it

Never heard it

Never felt it

Was it ever real?

If I keep holding it in

Hiding it behind curses and poetry

In between dyed hair and piercings

Underneath tears and silence

Where no one else can see it, feel it, hear it, taste it

No one, not even me

Is my pain even real?

Is my anger still valid?

Are my feelings still tangible?

It is possible for me to grasp them

As I float between the spaces in my emotions

I fear for the day When I feel wholly again

Every “it’s not worth it”

“I can’t say that”

“You’ll only get yourself in trouble”

For every time I bite my tongue And stifle how I feel

A new stick of dynamite it placed

The fuses already lit

Not even I know when the fire will finally reach the end

So I built up iron defenses around my heart

In hopes to protect everyone from me

To keep the blast radius within my body

So that the day when the ticking time bomb of my heart finally explodes

No one will be caught in the crossfire

Hoping to contain the burst of emotions entirely inside myself

Praying that when I finally detonate

I am the only one who burns

Swallowed up by the flames of my anger and destroying myself

But keeping safe all others

But I, too, fear being successful

Bearing this burden on my own

Keeping myself from getting too close to anyone

Preventing myself from forming meaningful connections

Stopping everyone from ever seeing me

I, too, fear being successful

If I explode and no one knows

Did I ever even feel at all?