My empathy and my apathy are interchangeable
Sometimes I care too much, I feel everyone’s pain and fear as strongly as my own, wearing their anger and sorrows in my shoulders
Sometimes I’m too numb to feel much of anything
Joy and laughter go through me as though mist, excitement is a foreign language that I do not understand and don’t care to understand

How can I tell the people I love

That I’m scared of being average

That I’ll forever be stuck

My dreams make a mockery of sleep
Leading me into safety with an open hand and a childlike smile
It’s not till I wake later, anxious and scared, that I realise I’ve fallen for the trap once more

They say dreams reflect the subconscious
How a promising start can have a plot twist
And how it is possible to feel almost obnoxiously content in ignorance and blissfully unaware of the knife hiding in the shadows

They say dreams can predict the future
This scares me
What does it say about me that whatever I do, I will always feel deceived, always perceive a soft word and kind eyes as dangerous

How strange it is to be lonely, the unending ring of the ears that demands attention,the heavy silence and desperate breathing, the heat behind eyes, the shaking of a leg, the crack in a spoken word, the quiet of the night disturbed, the wet cheeks and wet hair

Being alone doesn’t always mean lonely but in loneliness you are alone

I have learnt to mask my insecurity as independence
Pretending to be content in my own skin
Too proud to beg for someone else’s affection
Confidence radiates from my walk; head held high and back straight
But the crick in my neck lingers
A consequence of pushing my shoulders too far back
No one needs to know I stumble every time I feel eyes on me

My bed is no longer made up in the morning, instead I leave it rumpled and destroyed from the nightmares that visited me
My clothes are no longer folded neatly in the cupboard, instead they lay in the laundry basket which stands un-emptied for the third week running
My books are no longer standing proudly on the bookshelf, instead they are left on the floor with the corners folded and the spines broken
My body may not show any signs of illness but the symptoms of my sadness lay in plain sight

Repressing emotions is kinda my thing
See I don't have any artistic talent so painting a picture of my sadness would only cause more stress
I have a certain degree of athleticism but running when you want to cry is a losing battle (trust me)
Poetry helps distract for a few minutes but writing truth can make facing it harder
And talking? To people? About my sadness??? Don't be silly, my friends are awful at hiding both their pity and their boredom and neither one is welcome
And my parents would tell me to stop being over dramatic which is even more unwelcome
So yeah, I keep everything buried for as long as possible and when it emerges I say I'm tired and cry in the shower