Fake smiles hide real pain.
Fake stories hide real shame.
Fake laughs hide real fears.
Fake emotions hide real tears.

Fake words, and real lies,
Cause fake friendships and real fights.
Fake promises of real dreams
Make people crack cry and scream

But kind words make people smile.
Real people leading real lives
Is exactly what this world needs
So we can stop smiling fake smiles.

They flow and I am left
Confused and sad and a mix of a million other things
But I can't say any of them
I am a man

I put up walls to keep people out
And bite my cheek to hold back tears
I need to look strong, to put on a brave face
I am a man

Who cares
Maybe everyone, but I don't see that
My sight is blocked by walls that I put up
so now No one can see me, and I see no hope,
only darkness
Yet somehow words seep through the cracks
I can't see the source but the words are clear
They break down the walls, and they flow
Am I  a man?

I can't say it...
Not anymore
I love you are that will now strike a discord
I love you is a phrase I simply cannot afford
Conversations won't be ending with I love you anymore....

Is I wrong to seek a piece of myself
when I could be whole with what we have?

Is it wrong to want to put distance between us
before your a million miles away?

Is it wrong that lack of connection with you
makes me want to seek it with someone else?

Is it wrong to say I love you
when thoughts of leaving you are in my head?

Is it wrong that my deep desire for you
is slowly pushing me away?

Is it wrong that this dreary monotony
Makes me wish I'd left yesterday?

Is it wrong that my life and myself
seem to constantly push us apart?

The power of my spoken word
Is little if they're left unheard
And if thet stay inside my head
They might as well be words unsaid

I try to compensate with smiles so people won't find
That I cage up a monster with a mask of lies,
I make slits on my wrist so that it can fly,
Leaving me alone to bleed and cry,

Alone as I've been for  all these years,
Isolated on an island of tears
Having to fight through my darkest fears
You won't  reach out to me and nobody hears

All the screams that I make in the black of night,
I cry out in pain cuz I'm losing this fight
With myself, there's no help
For people like me
Except a bottle of pills that's supposed to treat

The symptoms of monsters we bury inside
Locked behind a mask of lies,
The pills take the monsters and leave us bone dry
With nothing...not monsters, or tears left to cry.

Not bent
Broken
Snapped
To the point where you can't see me
Not that you did anyway

Maybe I blinded you
Maybe you were always blind
But now, for sure my mind is
Snapped
Broken
Leaving

I was supposed to bend
I was supposed to have strength
But I guess that it all left, so now I'm
Broken
Snapped
Gone

I know a few things.
I know that being in church doesn't save you
And I know every other one liner a minister will say
I know I'm imperfect
I know what I've done in dark rooms,behind closed doors
And I know what lurks in the dark recesses of my mind
Things taken from a screen and from the mouths of others.
I know of the darkness that they bring
Darkness which permeates throughout your entire being;
That reaches the deepest part of the soul.
I know the pain of chains digging deep into flesh,
and I know what they rip apart
Joy
Sanity
Hope
But I know the Bliss of when they break.
I know about whirlpools,
The hopeless downward spiral,
And how no matter how hard you fight against them you need someone to pull you out.
I know how people see me.
Leader
Blessed
Perfect
And I know they only have fractured knowledge
They don't search deeply
They know as a student does,
Just enough to get by... no more
and I know if they did know their views would twist, why?
Because I know chains still bind me,
I know that no matter how much I rip them out and tear off parts of myself I can't break the chains,
I know if I just stopped knowing and acted I might have a chance.
But until then...chains remain.
No one sees them because I put on fly clothes to cover up
But I know they remain.
They stay because this whirlpool spits them back on me
and I know until I get help I need but have never known I will not know freedom.
I know of my helper and I don't deserve him
I know all the grime that is on me
Blood, tears, and nervous sweat mixed to create my foul coat.
But thankfully he responds more to dirt and tears than to white smiles.
So I'm choosing to stop knowing.
I am presenting to him all of my filth all my dirt and all of its wretchedness.
He will look through it and see me.
This great helper, whom I never deserved, will look upon my filth but see through and find treasure.
And he will rejoice,
He'll take me into him home and give me a bath to wash off all of the dirt that I've flung onto myself.
He will cut the chains and cast them as far as east and west.
And then me, this orphan who searched for completeness in substance and through screens, will be made complete.
I will be washed pure, and with the grime gone I will barley be recognizable because I've been made new.
Then I know that I will be with my helper, my restorer forever, without chains, whirlpools, screens, or any other filth
Just me and the man who put me back together.

Maybe
Maybe if I stopped venting to a screen
And coping with videos
Or if I stopped "talking" and talked
If I could only trust
If I didn't feel the need to be strong
If I wasn't an example
Maybe then I could tear down walls that restrict me
Walls that I made
Walls that keep my maybe from being possible
And maybe if they were torn down
Maybe then I wouldn't feel alone in crowds
Or fake whenever I talked to people
Maybe I could connect with people
Or I could feel real
Or even alive
Maybe..... just maybe....