A boy trapped in a growing man's body.
Emotions uncontrollable
Environments unstable
Afraid of the past
Terrified of the future
Living only reluctantly in the now.

His history is a mess of abuse, negligence, heartbreak, and death. He forgets the first, pretends the second wasn't his fault, relives the third daily, and is so used to the fourth he just doesn't care.
Tragedy isn't tragic when it's the norm.

Misused by his father,
Mistreated by his peers,
Misunderstood by the world.

And yet, he tries.
His emotions get the best of him.
So he separates. Confronts. Analyzes.
Reinstates.

Stronger than ever, he tries again.
He no longer denies his emotions, and instead accepts them gladly.

Things are fine.

But he can feel them slipping.

So he devotes himself to his own, personal solution. He works day in, day out to understand just who he is and what he's feeling.

Acting isn't the right word, but it's the one people use.

He prefers "living."

Having done it on a daily basis for years, it only makes sense to continue to do so.

But this time, with a new goal. A new frame of mind.

He wants to be happy. happy with his past, happy with who he is, what he's done, where he's going. Just, happy.

Not that he isn't, now. Now, he's reflecting.

In his quest to trust himself, he loses the trust of others.

"You're an actor. I'm scared that I can't tell when you're being honest, or just pretending."

I'll ignore them saying that what I do on a daily basis is pretend, and just say, it still hurts.

It hurts more than everything up to that point and he begins to lose trust in himself.

The first time he hears it, doubt.
The second, fear.
The third, anger.

And as he writes and/or speaks it again, to taste the taunt on his tongue, for the eight thousand millionth time...
Vulnerability.

And this isn't his usual subject. usually he tries to change the lives of others, to write about something more than himself.

Right now, that isn't the case.

Right now, he's dropping his facade, one he'd forgotten he was wearing, and begging strangers who he can trust more than his loved ones to simply trust him.

It's hard. To try and make the world better. He's not a saint, or martyr, and he's not trying to be. He's human, and he's in more pain than he'll ever let on.

Except amidst a sea of faces and words and songs and writing and ideas he may never see again. Here, he finds comfort. Trust.
Peace.

Here he is more at home than in his mother's arms.

All he asks is for you to trust him, in kind.

He thanks you now, having finished reflecting, for doing so.