We all have a favorite word,
whether we know it or not

It’s a word we use frequently,
yet not frequent enough

It’s a word that dwells within us,
living happily in our mansion of a soul

It breathes our air
and pumps our blood

And sometimes it’ll cause our lungs to restrict,
or our heart to stop

But, like a drug,
we’ll drink it,
inhale it,
inject it,
and everything goes back to normal

You’d think that after so many years
upon this utterly lonely planet,
we’d have learned what our purpose was

But each and every one of us,
each soul and heart,
are as confused as ever

The shimmering stars in the sky
reflecting themselves selfishly upon the lake
screaming at us to look at them;
to pay attention

But we’re too busy debating,
debating whether we have a purpose
or if we were simply made to die

The stars lose a bit of their shine,
creeping silently back to their room,
but yet they were not deterred

Night after night,
the stars gained glow after glow,
until we all finally looked up
and all of our angry faces turned soft

The stars glimmered and glinted,
being reflected in the eyes of each of us
entrancing us;
hypnotizing us

And then the stars snapped their fingers,
but we all continued to stare at the beauty
that we had forgotten existed in this cruel questionable world

My mind,
a cluttered and messy place
A place that I’m forever trapped
without a key

The key,
it perches atop a stool
behind barbed wire
and steel bars

Inaccessible
Untouchable
Unreachable
Impossible

The words that haunt my mind,
a cavern,
a ghost of what it used to be

Taunting me,
restlessly,
while kicking
and spitting upon my fragile brain

Perhaps my brain is glass
and the thoughts are rocks,
shattering the glass,
and then using the remains to stab my heart

And I let it happen
because I know I will never be free,
free from the Hell inside my head

At this point,
I’d rather stop breathing
than to hope
for the rough surface of the key in my palm

Because hope is just another word,
a synonym for imagination

They say to be yourself,
but then shoot you down if you are

They say that you're loved,
but every action shows otherwise

They say that life has meaning,
but they have no proof

They say I light up their life,
but all I see is darkness

I've gotten so used
to people telling me useless lies
that I've started to tell them myself

I say I'm okay
but I'm not

Why do we hide ourselves
burrowed deep underground
into the confines
of our mind?

It’s like a prison
one that can be harsh
yet also soothing
almost like a spa

And you get so caught up
in the massages
that you forget
all of the beatings

And when it switches
you’re struck down
again and again
until you’re back at square one

And all of this back and forth
it’s taking its toll
wearing you down
until you can’t even think

Perhaps we should tear the prison down
and instead, build a house
a cozy place to call home
where there is no judgement
and you can finally be you

Remember,
when we were younger
and we were scared
of the monster in the closet?

We never asked questions about it
why it was there
why the closet, of all places?
we were too terrified

But as we grew older
some of us stopped being afraid
because we knew it couldn’t hurt us
why be scared of something that couldn’t hurt you?

But some of us didn’t
to some of us, the monster grew
and it would attack us
late at night

Some of us weren’t afraid
but later in life
we confronted the monster again
and all those years of work dwindled down the drain

However, as we all grew
we, at some point, accepted the monster
sometimes welcoming it as a friend,
someone to listen

And as the days went by
all of us growing older
and finding ourselves, one day at a time,
the monster disappeared

It was like a weight off our chest
we were sad it was gone, but happy all the same

We could finally leave the confines of this place
and breathe
and laugh
and smile

maybe we were the monsters in the closet after all