I Am Nathan (The Poisonwood Bible Response)

My scars parallel war paint
And with every wound comes a woe
My yarns hurt like the bare flesh that burns with the slightest of breeze
So I prefer my confessions remain unexposed
See "walls" lack connotation
No I have put myself in a cage
The only audience is a mirror
So I constantly witness my own shame
Strip down to your insecurities
And I will do the same
But as long as you don't
As long as you don't
We must continue to play this game
This relationship would only be fair
If vulnerability is mutual
To have dead loved ones residing in your head
Is like reliving multiple versions of your own funeral
The substance of grief is not imaginary
It's as real as rope
Or the absence of air
And like both of those things
It can kill
My body understood there was no safe place to be
So I retreated to the darkness in my pupils
There are so many answers
All of them are faultless
None of them are good enough
Hell holds onto my ankles
Making it hard to pick them up much less take a step forward
So even though I've traveled to Africa
My feet stay cemented in the mud of the Philippine

This poem is about: 
Me

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