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To answer your question,
An essay would be most apt,
I’ll route through the archives, sift through dusty drawers,
Plot the coordinates of where I have been and map out my thoughts.

But first I must know: what do you know?
Can you hold the depth, can you pause to reflect?

And in the moment, you hold my gaze,
The silence swelling,it’s  weight thick,
I am but a deer in the headlights,
Startled, still and blank,

So in answer to your question,
I’m fine.
Is it finally over?
Living in fear
Of those I am supposed to trust
Breaking free of the cage
The latest prophesy reoccurring
I wondered what it meant
Could it just be a change in mindset?

Is it finally over?
Hiding who I truly am
Who WE truly are
Masking
Pretending
To be whole, to be one

Is it finally over?
Fearing we will have to hide forever
Wondering if anyone will ever believe us
Wondering if anyone will ever care

Was it a misunderstanding all along?
Were we isolating ourselves without reason
Believing it will be not different than the other times
Are they finally ready to listen?

Hope is a cruel thing
Please don’t hurt us again
Turns out we didn’t have to hide. They want to talk about it. I’m both petrified and elated. It’s not going to be like I hope it will. It never is. But we’re so, so tired of pretending
Reece Feb 26
Always the cloud,
Blocking out my sun,
Filling me with darkened thoughts,
Never any fun.
Makes me question the point,
Wondering if the struggle is worth the ending.
Always suffering,
For what?
Eventually, the clouds will move on,
My sun will resurface,
I’ll hide my pain behind a smile,
And walk on,
For what am I to do?
This is number two of this little series, I'll try to come up with a more clever name eventually.
i never seem
to be able to

to be able to
be
accepted

to be able to
belong

but
fitting in
is

different than
belonging


molding yourself
Into the
neatly
labelled
boxes
life sets out for us

to fit in


becoming what people want from you

hiding your
true self.
hiding behind a mask

hiding yourself

fitting in.
lil one today
Loke Houbo Nov 2024
As I sleep
My mask grows anew
As I must upkeep
How I am viewed

Throughout the day
It must be worn
I must not sway
Until everyone's gone

As your head grows grimy
As the days keep marching
The mask thickens
The mask brightens

Each day I suffocate
Suffocate in a toxic smile
Suffocate at the remarks
I gasp for air
As the mask wither away in isolation

Crumbling as I touch silence
It falls without delay
Closing in on everyday
And the mask grows bolder
The mask grows thicker
The repeated desperate and exhausting fight to hide off oneself, out of fear and compassion.
アラン Nov 2024
faces

pressed hard against frosted glass
face shapes, indistinct
bleached of expression
distorted by breath condensed

why choose to suffer like that
frozen to the outside of distorting glass
separated by that pane
division you refuse to submit to?

when every smile is unaware
where there are no windows on the soul
who you are a concrete set

I resonate because
on this side too
there is identity, pulse,
that quiet sense of self
pushing harder into the ice
believe some locks
can be unpicked
In 1995 I was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, sometimes known as "High Functioning Autism" (I hate that term as it diminishes individuals that are as bright and beautiful as anyone else, but communicate in a different paradigm).  Explaining to someone with whom I had fallen in Love that I had Aspergers, she asked "What is it like?" - I struggled to answer straight away, and in the end wrote this to try to explain.  It is imperfect, but I wanted to communicate not only what it is like, but why I deal with it in the way I do.
busy pitter patters
of feet, at least
pretending
to be busy
these humans,
these flesh sacks,
place their bags
laptops
their unconsciousness
on this barnes & noble’s
coffee tables
whose chairs aren’t comfortable

yet, here they sit, beside me
amongst me
and an old
ancient, it seems now,
version of me would’ve cursed them
silently
while pretending to associate
to relate
to give a ****
for doing so,
for raising my anxiety,
for reflecting what i truly was,
at least
pretending
to identify with that narrow
window of my self

some collide
physically,
cosmically,
spiritually,
intuitively, whatever the hell you brand it

we all seek
connection,
always elsewhere,
never with our miserable
anxious selves

and if we can’t connect
we, at least
pretend
to do so
much like our riddling iphones
desperate for battery
for a sort of
charge
for life
elsewhere
somewhere else
anywhere
else rather than within

to be alone, amongst the crowds,
without our phones, our books,
our lovers, our seven dollar coffees,
our ******* egg white breakfast sanwhiches

almost as if these things
are essential to the unsavory
cravings and desires, or
dare i say
ourselves

we pretend
to work, to live
we read, without reading
we speak, without thinking,
we speak, without speaking,

“to be, or not to be.”

we don’t care for
intention
anymore
how could we?
we’re just so
un-*******-phadomably
busy
doing
nothing,

at all

just,
pretending.

-melanholicreator
people pretend.
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