It is time to wake up
from the languid daydreams
that once I treasured so.

The place that used to be a haven,
an escape from life’s banality,
now feels like a gilded cage.

The mind wanders, untethered,
through sunlit corridors of indolence
pushing to see how far it can go.

Tantalizing me with possibilities,
never reality, this limbo
is only good for the occasional vacation.

you never really understood why I couldn't meet your eyes, or anybody else's for that matter. Eyes are the windows to the soul and i have more secrets than you could ever count. i never met your eyes because you'll read me and I don't want to be read like an open book. I don't trust many people with a secret but a total stranger could look me in the eyes and know everything. i guard myself with maximum security, my eyes are the only part of me that ever gets a break from the cage i locked myself in. you never really understood why i talked low either. someones voice could give away everything they're feeling, no matter how strong the mask they've pasted on is.

Monsters crawl in the dark crevices in my brain.
Let me go! Leave!
I'm so tired!
Do you know what it's like reader?
Your eyes scan these words but do you understand?
Young girl, boy, old woman, man, do you?
I wish I knew if you could relate.
Do you know what it's like to exist in a world that doesn't exist.
The real world is just outside but I can't escape my own.
Monsters are everywhere.
Seeping in, scratching at my door.
I let them in every time.
They simply tell me to.
I can't escape..
I want all thoughts to leave my mind and let me be.
I want to go back and not be so alone.
I felt so alone.
That is why I created the monsters.
Only to keep me company.
I was a lonely child.
Everyday I would wake alone.
Every night I would sleep alone.
I was alone.
I was a lonely child.
Loneliness in turn raised me.
It nurtured the monsters.
The monsters shaped me.
I wish I could go back and not be alone.
Loneliness is deadly.
I was lonely for too long.
I was lonely for too long.

She grew tired of her thoughts
and the weaknesses they had found,
So she flicked her embered cigarette;
and burnt them to the ground.

The tracks of my tears
         *   Tearing
Lines of lies down my face
Like bars on a cage
And I'm trapped
And escape is so far away
I can't see a glimmer of hope
But rather, shades of grey.
I remember birds
And how far they can fly
But my wings are broken,
So why bother try?
And when my jailor comes I hide.
Because I *know
Who.
He.
Is.
And I can't bear it.
So I hide.
But I can't lie, not to myself
I can try to deny
But in the end I know
How useless that is.
Because under that horrible mask
Is not some monster in the dark...
But, I suppose it is.
And under that mask
My disguise
Is a cage of lies.
Where I sit and I cry
Because I know.
I put myself here.
*and I can no longer escape

I swim in my prison
Of shallow water this
Prison a bowl, all I do
Is go in circles, getting
Dizzy as its the only way
To go.

I spend my days in this
Watery cell, three meals
A day, locked up but I did
Nothing wrong. I see you
Smug as you have open
Space. I just swim around
For the 10552 time.

I wish to swim in the open
Sea, but I was taken with
No wish to be in this cage,
Tiny thing which you  have
Brought for me.

I will dream of open spaces
Water further than the eye
Can see, but then I hit the
Glass wall of my cage an it
Is now my limited existence
In this bowl and me...

All around me, I see endless fear.
Fear of heights, sure, fear of scuttling things
Fear of darkness, fear of bites
Fear of brightness, fear of fights.
This is the fear we can display
Because it’s little, simple, understandable.
But the fear I really fear
That we all let consume us
Is deeper,
Darker,
Cold.
It’s the fear of friendship, fear of love,
Fear of what’s ahead of us
But even more of what’s behind us
Fear to see what’s really beyond
The faces we all fake.
Fear of the unknowable
Fear of what we know
Fear of speaking out or up or for
Fear of conforming to something more
Fear to test the limits
Fear to taste the truth
Fear of what’s uncomfortable
Rather than the deception of comfort
Fear of what to do
Fear of striving for perfection
When perfection’s so unattainable.
Fear of to leave what has been known
Fear of what has been done
Fear to see past fabrication,
Fear to show the truth.
I’m talking fear of emotion
Or fear of not feeling enough
Fear of silence, but worse,
The fear of candid words.
Fear to look someone in the eye
And say, “I know you,
And I care for you.”
Fear to let someone see the darkness that comes with your light
Fear of rebelling though it’s time someone did
Fear of doing what you want and know
Because of what someone told you you should
Fear of being who you are
Because every day everyone is telling you
What to do and who to be
And what is acceptable
And what is not.
I’m talking fear of having an opinion
Because someone will shoot it down
Fear of defense or service or selflessness
Because someone won’t approve.
Fear to accept because of fear of acceptance
Fear to truly love someone
Because it’s risky,
And you never know
What someone else really feels.
I cry for the fear of
Every person who can’t be
Who they are and who can’t
Let people see them in their entirety
Because after all everyone urges
And persuades and demands and values
And idolizes and expects,
You don’t even know yourself,
Because you've been too busy
With trying to be so many different
“Someone Else"s.

I ache for this relentless fear.
I mourn the stagnancy of the condition
Of the human soul who is so afraid
To let go of fear
And BE somebody,
To do something or say something, or simply believe,
That the only thing they truly trust
Is the familiarity
Of fear itself.
That’s why fear is frightening
That’s why we should be afraid of fear
Because it stops us, cages us,
Bars us behind the façade we display
And muffles the words of our heart.

I see these things and wonder
Why can’t they change?
Why can’t this need to fear be erased
From the human condition?
And I realize it’s because everyone
Is afraid.

And I’m so afraid too.