In today's society we learn to keep our words bottled up
Because the pain of letting anyone hear would be unbearable.
We keep ourselves behind lock-and-key,
Protecting our real personalities in a cage--
And we try our best
But all our beasts break free every now and then.
We try to contain them, to stuff them back behind those bars
But they lash out in the form of whispered words and late-night conversations,
Because prisons aren't adequate enough to protect us from ourselves.
We keep our lips sealed because this passageway to our mind is a two-way street.
If we open ourselves up and let people see who we really are
All we think about are the people who will infest that space where the words used to be,
Where the beast was kept.
We think about the people who will force themselves into our personality,
Paying semi-permanent rent in our very being.
We worry about the day they will want to act on the part that is temporary,
We fret about the day they will decide to rip themselves out of our core
Because by that time they've turned into a hangnail that we enjoy sharing company with-
We know it's there but it's subtle
And when it gets removed it hurts like a *****!
It's not something that goes away immediately.
It takes a long time for this pain to go away
And even after it's gone it comes back if we're not careful.
If we don't guard our feelings, that loss returns with a vengeance.
We begin to regret everything that led up to this moment,
Everything that caused us this ache in the middle of our chest
Because keeping this all inside would have been better.
But as the good memories flood in we realise something:
Yes, keeping this all inside would have saved us the pain,
But it was worth it no matter how much pain they caused us
Because we are who we are thanks to them;
We can only hope they feel the same.
We can just add this to the growing list of scars that we have earned in battle.