oh you know, anxiety.
the feeling everybody gets
when they get a turn at the printing center
the feeling everybody gets
when they need to ask the waiter for an extra napkin
the feeling everybody gets
when they have to tell the teacher they don’t understand the difference between mass and atomic number
the feeling everybody gets
when they’re the next to pay in line
the feeling i was fine with feeling;
until i found out... nobody else feels this way.

At first I weep

Finally awoken
the light flickers brightly
Seeing for the first time
through the eyes of her elder
I'd waited for what seemed an eternity
for my inner child to reach out to me

At first I weep
for the longing is over and finally
after all these years
I can set her free

She is now sleeping
the deepest since before I left her
Abandoned her
Before I pushed her behind my pain and trapped her
******* and gagged her
My ears muffled with a loudness
That I set to the highest level
I didn't want to hear her cries

I thought I was protecting her
From the pain I had predicted
Ahead for me
I had seen my future
There was no love that awaited me
I was thirteen years old
What could I have known

Now we have spoken
And embraced
Forgiven my crime to her
I can see
That if I'd let her inside me
Listened to her heart
Along time ago
I could have been free

They wander around aimlessly, a discord of sound and body.  They move.  Each one searching for the leader of this chaos. Wherever one goes, another follows. And another. And another. I should not be here, but I do not want to leave. They surround me, inches from my face without looking at me. Without seeing me.  Without acknowledging me. I stand and wait, with my best smile. The one she said she loved that day we were at the beach. They will notice me. Ten. Fifty. One hundred. One thousand. One million.  I feel the deepest loneliness in this discord of sound and body. Maybe if I turn around? Maybe someone behind me is trying to see me? I wave as my smile becomes a waning crescent of my former happiness.  After one thousand pass me by, I wave my arms and get in front of those walking in front of me. Extending my arm and open hand. They push me away. Am I the source of this discord? Why do they now move in accord as one sound and body to push me to the ground? A multitude set against me and the music is the most beautiful anger.  I should not be here, but I do not want to leave. They surround me, inches from my face without looking at me. Without seeing me.  Without acknowledging me.

You don't see my eyes...
They look away whilst my cheeks
with a band worn thin,
hold up this mask.

With effortless ease,
I maintain this smile
plastered upon the sheen
of cheap mouldable plastic.

Fooling others
with a face acceptable by default,
when my neck and collar
stain wet.

Protected and hidden
are my innermost thoughts
and emotions - a morbid
sense of oneness and freedom.

I, therefore, cannot shed
such an accoutrement.
This mask - a fort I will hold and
a bastion, I will not compromise.

Because behind it I feel safe, hidden
and unjudged.