I choked on the words

as my tongue tried to string together

all the vowels and consonants

to make sense of the things

I kept trapped inside.

 

All the pain.

The memories.

The tears.

The emptiness.

The regrets.

The fears.

The loneliness.

 

It pounds inside my head,

dying to escape.

But instead,

the pain tangles my thoughts

and numbs my mind.

It carves itself into my bones,

leaving permanent scars

to remind me of how broken

I truly am.

 

Of how broken I've always been,

and how broken I will always be.

 

But the girl with the million dollar smile

and the compassionate heart

can't possibly have a world like that

living under her skin.

 

How can someone who seems so happy

end up being so sad?

 

For society doesn't pity the broken

or the hurt

or the lonely

or the dying.

 

Society doesn't have time

to pick up the broken letters of your life

and try to put them all in their place.

 

Nobody even notices

that I'm choking on my pain,

waiting for someone to realize

that I can't speak up for myself.

That I can't find the words

to explain all I need to.

So I hide and wait,

for someone to hear my silent cry

and help me rewrite the life

I've lost deep inside me.