A little girl behind closed doors
Location
I play, I laugh, and I cry.
But mainly I cry, a lot.
Hidden behind walls I’ve built and
In those I live,
I cry.
A façade created by the strength people expect of me.
I am weak inside. I say words don’t hurt me,
I lie.
I say, “I’m fine.”
I lie.
I used to be better, things didn’t hurt as much.
That was a time when the walls protecting me were made of
nearly impenetrable rock.
But slowly softening over time until
I was made of holes.
You say you can’t trust me, you who go around gossiping
and spreading lies, can’t trust me?
Simply because…
...because I was happy.
Because I wasn’t afraid to say what I thought?
Congratulations Judas, Brute, and Benedict
You ripped me down and I have stayed down.
Once I was timid, now timid to a fault.
I’ve kept myself in so much that I drown.
Years have gone by since those days.
I don’t wish to go back and put you down.
Not even as a passing phase.
Because that has made me better,
I write this to you now as a letter.
Your cruelties made me open my eyes.
I strive to include those when I was left out.
I have no doubts that you were cruel and horrid to a
little girl.
Those memories plague me.
I cry behind closed doors. I fear of loneliness because
of the betrayals of you, my dear friends way back when.
That should have been the end of our friendship
were I anyone else, but you made me more kind-hearted.
Still, in light of this, I would not change
those days when you spurned me.
I like my compassion that your meanness developed.
So, I thank you for that.
Yet, today if I could just change one thing-
It would still be me.
I loathe hiding in the shadows.
Fearing judgment from everyone, I hide
behind closed doors.
Behind closed doors I can be naked and free.
I can cry, have wit and a loose tongue
without fear of how my “friends”
perceive me.
This is why, if I could change just one thing,
I would open the closed doors, step out of
the shadows and just be me.
Me as I am and should be.
I don’t want to change the world.
If I, as I am, don’t have the power or the strength
To push the weights off my chest…If I can’t stand up for
Myself on my own two feet after Twenty-One years when
a colt can stand up just hours after being born-
then I have no right to chase after the clouds or the world.
All I want to change, is myself
To no longer be the little girl who hides and cries
But a young woman not hiding behind a guise
Standing strong and unafraid.