I do not speak much

well, okay I do, but I also don't
I can tell you about the weather
engage you with a story

but this

is me trying to say something real
this is me screaming inside my years of silence
realising I need the world to know I'm here
if I want it to change for me
if I want it to change me

this is me screaming
inside my silence
trying to break it
I just need real words

we use poems to mask our silence
and then also speak about the poems
hé Daniël, I got
another thousand views on hellopoetry
like it would matter
like we would write less, if no one would ever read us

I would, anyway
and if no one would read me anymore
I might get honest
I might start to be vulnerable
I might open up

maybe one of these days
I'll find the curage
to tell you
about your name
and what it means
to me

whisper your secrets to the wind
tell your stories to the trees
but do not ever
ever ever ever
tell anything important
to another human being

share your secrets with a stranger
far away on the internet
keep closeness on a distance
do not let them hurt you
you could always turn them off

share your secrets with the wind
tell your stories to the trees
but never tell another soul
about the things that keep you up
about the things that make you silent
unless you want to scream

I keep playing this game of hide and seek in which
i hide, nobody seeks
and none of the things i put deep inside my pain
is worth being found by strangers

which is all you all are, strangers
unable to connect with my most precious feelings
unable to even acknowledge this pain
unable to even wonder if there may be something wrong

but then i'll get a message, saying
'your poems sound depressed, are you okay'
and i lie my way out with honesty
and just have to find another place to hide the shame

and i'll just dig deeper
hide my madness farther away
and i'll even believe myself i don't know
why i'm not asleep

i stole your story
wrote poems about your heartbreak like it was mine
but somewhere in my self-afflicted agony
i forgot to ask how you are doing now

yesterday
two years ago
i didn't know

then we met
i laughed when you told me you loved me
and i would love you too

but you were right
somehow you made me open my heart
to let you in

but i was always scared to lose you
until you promised you would never break up with me
which you didn't

until you did

yesterday two years ago i didn't know
about the boy  who'd steel my heart
just to break it
and let me fall apart

the clock in my street is so happy about the passing time
every thirty minutes it stars singing a song full of joy
but only when there's people around
he's trying to share a message
he's trying to give us hope