Hidden Truth

These forced laughs exhaust me

A practiced smile & nonsense conversations

My fast paced walk makes everything seem alright. I’m trying to fit in.

Forcing myself to be one of you, like a puzzle piece in the wrong set.

I tug at my sleeves periodically, trying to keep the secrets beneath hidden.

You notice and say, ‘Cold?’

I smile and say, 'As always’

We let it end there, it’s for the best.

I’m thrashing on the inside, begging to let it all out. To say that I’m not okay, that I’m tired & spent.

To ask you to save me, because I don’t know how much longer I can walk towards the light.

But if I whisper one word, the darkness would swallow me.

Saving me from your judgments, your inability to understand me. Your statements of 'oh, we all go through phases.’

This isn’t a phase. This isn’t a moment. It’s a curse in a blessing. My noose & oxygen. It’s my safety & my shelter, my prison & my captor.

But how could you understand, when you don’t know what it feels like to despise your own being, to wish to not exist, to want to be anything but you. To take a blade & slice your own flesh. To starve yourself till it hurts. For no other purpose than to hurt you & ruin you.

Until you feel what I do.

I hope you never do.