I shake his hands,

Yet my toes are beneath where he stands.

He’s been stomping my toes for hours,

Pacing on them as he explains why his belief, should be ours.

Any longer and my toenails will fall off,

Will he step off with a hint, maybe he will leave with a slightly hinting cough.

I cannot fault him however,

Like a Wizard of Oz, I’m a phony, hoping no one will pull my lever.

I have died many times before,

Yet never once has my young body been sore.

I am not proud,

To be beneath this shroud.

I am a buffet of what society craves to see,

Yet I refuse to ever take slightest bite of what I know to be me.

A sample of the buffet to me tastes of disgrace,

The flavor of the person I am… I have yet to taste.

The shroud is a smoky haze,

Blurring others from the source of the blaze.

I offer them warmth and happiness,

But the embers of my actual fire, drowned out by my tears dampness.

The eyes are the gateway to the heart,

A gate leads to something, its either and ending or a start.

Yet as I race my way through the world, I hide,

I don’t know whose eyes I look through, who leads my stride.

I could walk a camel through a needles eye,

Twice as easy as I could look in the mirror and ask “Who am I?”

But if I did look, what would I see,

What would the real me turn out to be.

I would be unbelievable,

I would be the conqueror of my own world, that is indisputable.

I would be a maestro, a conductor,

The mastermind by the painting, a true art constructor.

I could be the first man to fly,

I would be the man remembered after I die.

I could climb Everest paralyzed waist down,

The world could be mine, if I threw this shroud down.

I wish I could conquer my fear,

I wish I could pull the curtain back and let people get near.

Because maybe with the curtain drawn back I can see,

That the only man holding me back and stomping my toes… is me.