Shame

For fear of showing who I really am.

I speak but I’m just a sham.

Colored green with the thought,

that being me is all that I have.

So, I smile and spill words of falsity.

Appearing happy and fun, but

that’s just the me I wish I could be.

Even when I write I’m afraid.

For who am I writing to that would think that YOU,

 no

I,

am okay.

Deep in this body is a soul crushed by the words

whore, useless, mistake.

The faces that cast off disdain with the ease of peeling skin.

Never in your eyes have I found the approval I seek.

So I smile it away and push that soul deeper.

Only on those days.

It bursts out across passages and in speech, ceasing to do anything but shout.

It is real .

Vibrant in color. Warped and twisted and bruised. Smiling.

It is me. For all it’s ugly ways and coarseness. It is me.

And I have locked it away. For you.