"I'm Fine"

You knew I wasn’t okay. You saw through my lies. Yet you kept silent, letting me crumble behind a wall of “I’m fine”s. Instead of reminding me that it was okay to cry, let me convince myself that I didn’t matter. That my needs and worries were nothing compared to those of others. That I was required to listen, put their need above my own, let them pile their troubles onto my back one by one, not seeing as I sank further and further into the ground, clinging to phrases like, “they have been through so much more” and “I have no reason to complain” and whilst pelted at me were “You are so lucky”s and “at least you never”s but it’s okay because “I’m fine”. I am fine. Nothing is wrong, I’m just not smiling for once in my life- am I not allowed to not smile? I am so convinced that I am fine that I don’t see the effects your actions have on me, how tired I am every day, how I snap back at people. That moment when they figure out that sarcasm is a defense but the only thing they say is “Well can you just stop being so defensive?” they don’t ask me why I am being defensive with them, they don’t stop touching me, sit further away- all they do is ask me to lower my walls, such a simple thing. But those walls didn’t come from nowhere- they were built. And they weren’t built for no reason- I was attacked. I was attacked and unarmed with no allies. You are asking me to lower walls so thick that I can’t get out. What a design flaw. But no one can lower walls. That isn’t how they work. Because they were built up from the ground and I can’t reach the top of them. Do you have a wrecking ball? I didn’t think so. No, you can’t come in. Still, you push your way into my room, into my life. You try to break down my walls. But I am my walls and breaking them is breaking me. You are hurting me but I will keep my mouth shut. I won’t say a thing because I’m so broken already- what’s one more crack? But enough cracks and I’ll shatter- I already feel about to. I want out of my walls of “I’m fine”. I want to tell someone what’s wrong, cry in their lap. I want them to remember that when they pass me in the halls and see me chatting animatedly and “happily”. I want them to remember that the next time I say “I’m fine”. I wonder sometimes about these walls. Who even built them- you or me? Am I trapped or protected? Am I both? I don’t know. I don’t want to be here. I hate my walls just as much as the person trying to squeeze through the cracks in them- the person who genuinely wants to know me. I don’t want to be here. But that is not to say I wish to stand on a hill unprotected- easy prey. I need a gate. The kind only I can open. I need to be able to throw people out. To decide that someone is not good for me without being cast in a horrid light that calls me a bad friend. Maybe I’m not a bad friend because I’m just not a friend. Just because I am friendly it does not mean you are allowed to be that close. I need you to leave because I don’t know how to be me around you and that’s where I begin to falter.