For The Boys Who Can’t Admit They Are Hurt

I hope one day you open up. I hope one day you cry. I hope you let tears fall down your face as they mix with the water that sprays onto you in the shower. I hope you look at yourself in the mirror with your hair a mess, your eyes puffy and nose runny. I hope you hold onto your knees in the middle of the night. I hope you push your face into your pillow so as to not let others hear you sob. I hope one day you let the love of your life hold onto you as you hyperventilate, unable to express why it is you are sad, because the words just won’t come out.

I do not hope for this because I want you to be hurt. I do not hope for people to feel pain, but sadly it is a feeling we all have to go through. Pain is inevitable.

What we do have a choice in is the mechanism we use to relieve ourselves from that pain.

It saddens me that you have chosen one so destructive, but I also know it’s not entirely your fault. Society has taught you to be hard. They have convinced you that the best way to deal with your pain, is to not deal with it at all. You have been told to push it down until you self-destruct, because that is so much better than looking weak, even for a brief moment.

I will never know what that is like.

I have allowed myself the freedom to cry in the middle of a public area without feeling completely humiliated. I get to blame my moodiness and overindulgence of chocolate on a natural occurrence in my body that happens once a month, but I don’t have to. I can listen to all types of music that express all types of feelings—whether it’s sobbing to love songs, grinding sexually to rap music, or head banging angrily to dubstep.

When you give yourself freedom to feel and the freedom to express how you feel, you are able to truly accept and understand your emotions.

You can properly analyze them, care for them and heal from them.

I feel sorry that you have not learned this. I really do. I feel sorry that you are unable to cope with your sadness in effective, healthy ways and instead you have to express yourself through anger or toughness.

It saddens me that you can’t comprehend how refreshing it feels to just feel.

I’m also sorry, that because of your inability to properly feel, you will continue to push away those that attempt to love you. You will continue refusing to create deeper connections through the intensity of emotions, because love is what really ends up breaking down those walls in the first place.

You curse instead of cry. You yell instead of plead. You fight instead of feel. It’s why your muscles get bigger, along with your voice and ego.

They build that wall you surround yourself with, because behind that wall is someone soft. It’s someone you need to protect from the world, because if that part of you is even poked at, it’ll rupture into a million pieces—into all the emotions you have not let yourself properly feel and you’re afraid of someone witnessing that.

All of the bad memories you refuse to discuss, the painful scars you never let heal, the hurtful words others have said that you’ve ignored—they will tear you apart, because there has been so much you have left without confronting.

Your insides will remain hidden, don’t worry. No one will see them. You won’t be exposed no matter how many people try to pry you open. You’ve become so good at pretending, giving just enough so that they stop, but still wonder.

It’s like you’re the prisoners trapped in Plato’s Cave. You refuse to see past the fake reality in which you have built for yourself. The only ones allowed into it are the ones who don’t necessarily know you are trapped in the first place. Maybe they are also trapped themselves.

Once anyone figures it out, when they notice the chains around your wrists, the bars confining your space and the suffocating air you are breathing—they will try to help bring forth your condition and you will become angered.

Please don’t shove them away. Don’t be scared of confronting the things that have been tearing you down. You are much stronger than that and I don’t mean in how you look or act.

I mean that you have resilience. You have an ability to completely break down, to fall a part, to cry, to meltdown, to give up, to face all it is that has hurt you and then pick yourself up again. That is true strength.

I hope you realize this one day.