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Clayton24Poems
Since I was young, fear made its home inside my chest— a locked-up room I faced alone. Not monsters, not the dark, not shadows showing teeth. Something quieter underneath. A black tide beneath my skin, pulling my heart deeper in, down where breath could never be, down where no one came for me. It was not loneliness. Loneliness calls. Sadness cries. This was silence behind my eyes. The knowing when the day was through, when every voice had somewhere to go to, no one truly had me. I had people. I had names. I had hands almost the same. But no one held the hidden part, the small scared place inside my heart, the one that learned to disappear before it asked for someone near. So I carried it beneath my ribs, a stone I never learned to give. I learned its weight. I wore it alone. And somewhere along the way, I mistook it for bone.
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May 11
May 11, 2026 at 5:24 AM UTC
Nobody Had Me
Since I was young, fear made its home inside my chest— a locked-up room I faced alone. Not monsters, not the dark, not shadows showing teeth. Something quieter underneath. A black tide beneath my skin, pulling my heart deeper in, down where breath could never be, down where no one came for me. It was not loneliness. Loneliness calls. Sadness cries. This was silence behind my eyes. The knowing when the day was through, when every voice had somewhere to go to, no one truly had me. I had people. I had names. I had hands almost the same. But no one held the hidden part, the small scared place inside my heart, the one that learned to disappear before it asked for someone near. So I carried it beneath my ribs, a stone I never learned to give. I learned its weight. I wore it alone. And somewhere along the way, I mistook it for bone.
Clayton24
Written by
Clayton24
38/M/Mesa AZ
May 11
May 11, 2026 at 5:24 AM UTC
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