i oversaturate everything i love
till they feel like empty husks
of people who used to mean something to me.
the more time i spend
keeping them close at bay,
the more i find myself
worrying that they will tire of me.

the sparks will fizzle out,
the glamour of the mystery
will wear and tear
as the curtain falls to reveal
the only ugly and all too real
parts of myself i have left.
where am i going
when i am growing alone?

must i always run away
to feel like i am worthy-
like i am interesting-
like i am more than the
shiny stories i tell of myself?

if i continue to be this way
will i always find
the path of life
too narrow to allow
for another to walk alongside me?

where will i find myself
if all i am doing is running?
there are times when
i feel as if home is the only place
i ever want to be
but it is also the prison in which
i always feel lesser of myself.

lonely are the hearts that believe
they need to escape
to find themselves
only to come back and realize
they are stuck
with every one of their million faces.

sometimes i wonder
if i am lying to myself.
too often i find
that i am creating
fiction out of the mundane.
perhaps that's the storyteller in me.
but also part of me knows
it's the scared little girl
always afraid of giving
too much away-
a magician
who keeps her cards up her sleeve
too careful to to reveal the trick
until the curtains close,
the audience bows out,
and the theatre is nothing
but an empty husk
of echoes and dead applause.

what you see
is nothing but an illusion
of who i wish i were
but how i wish
it were more than just a
carefully crafted fantasy.
this charade is getting old.
this heart is growing cold.
someday, gravity will catch up
with this fantasy,
and the walls will come tumbling down.
but till then,
i'll keep my story shut,
and repaint this smile
while the world looks
the other way