i exist

poems from my notes app

i exist

between four walls 

that keep me in, 

but more importantly, 

keep others out. 

i can’t remember when the walls grew up

around me and held me tights

before ivy and vines pulled the doors shut

i don’t know what is outside 

sometimes i dream of opening a window. 

outside isn’t safe, i think

it’s a chaotic world of 

emotion and shame, 

where the stinging words of rejection buzz like hornets

so i pull the window shut 

there is nothing good for me in here, 

i know that, 

the lifetime of hiding and suppressing, 

will catch up to me soon. 

but i can’t get out. 

self sabotage is a way of life,

nobody else can reside between these walls 

in case they change their minds, 

and let in the hornets to tell me what i really am. 

there is a world out there, waiting

but i cannot open the door, 

just a crack would let everything in. 

so i lock the doors and bar the windows. 

safely within these four walls. 

Author's Note

june 2017- too raw??