I Don’t Want My Walls To Come Crumbling Down

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I know you are in there. Yes, you. The person whose eyes search for shades of colors in a grey world. Who cries during songs that have lyrics familiar to the tangled strings of chaotic thoughts occupying their little mind. I know your eyes moisten and your throat hurts from the lump forming inside of it each time the nostalgia hits you, turning you into a wreck.

But you’re swift to wipe the tears off your cheeks and clear your throat with a swallow. Because you don’t want to break the tough facade you’ve put up for show, you don’t want your walls to come crumbling down.

I know you’re in there. The person whose hands want to run over the skin of another. I know your fingers still ache to lock onto somebody else’s, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fitting just right. Your thumb still longs to run tiny circles against the flesh of another.

But you clasp your fingers tightly into a fist instead, and dig your nails into the empty space on your palm, to silence the longing. Because you don’t want to break the tough facade you’ve put up for show, you don’t want your walls to come crumbling down.

I know you’re in there. The person whose mind still wanders off aimlessly, searching for home. I know your thoughts keep trailing off into a daze, wondering if you’ll ever be home, a home that has a heart that thuds out loud when you’re around it, a heart that beats in sync to the rhythm of your heartbeat. I know your mind wants to lose itself in eyes lighter than your morning coffee, and deeper than the ocean, gleaming like stars on a moonless night.

But instead you lie. Even though you secretly hope and wish otherwise, you lie to your mind saying homes cannot be made out of humans. Because you don’t want to break the facade you’ve put up for show, you don’t want your walls to come crumbling down.

I know you’re in there, the person whose skin craves a touch like honey. I know the urge you feel to rest your chest on a shoulder and heave a deep sigh. I know how you long for a pair of hands to hold you back up when you’re all over the ground, a scattered mess.

Instead, you cover your skin with shards of invisible ice, numbing all sensations. Instead, you wait hopelessly for the day when all the cells of your skin tissues are renewed, replaced well enough to not know what the touch of a loved one feels like. Because you don’t want to break the tough facade you’ve put up for show, you don’t want your walls to come crumbling down.

I know you’re in there, the person the world thinks is long lost. But I know you lie hidden within, in the deep dark corners of my soul, struggling to not show up, struggling to not break out. I know you’ve befriended your own demons, I know you feel safer back in there than out here.

Sometimes you wish to come out, sometimes you wish to see if there are any shades of pink and blue in the greying world, sometimes you wish to come out and see if the world changed for the better. Instead, you choose to stay hidden. You choose to let the world believe you’re no more. Because you don’t want break the tough facade you’ve put up for show. You don’t want your walls to come crumbling down.

But darling, I know you’re in there.