Do you ever get that feeling? That no matter what  you do, you can never live up to the expectations? The expectations that are set by your parents or your friends or the society around you? The fact that you succeed academically, automatically means that you're supposed to do something about it. Your parents are nagging you to do better, to push yourself to the limit because you have the "opportunities" that they never did. Or you feel like you finally did something right, only to be overshadowed or compared to someone or something else. That feeling of rejection and disappointment and loneliness coming from within that you can't share out loud. You end up locking them inside to dwell in and keep hidden; never to reveal to someone else until its too late to fix the problem. And its not just that loneliness of not talking to someone for awhile, its that deep depression of not being able to connect with someone. So you stay locked up in your little shell, surrounded by walls. EVERYWHERE. That's the loneliness that lingers, even if you are constantly interacting with the rest of the world. You can't get over it, you can't lose or shake that feeling, it stays with you no matter what you do to try and get away from it. And you don't know how you came to get it, to experience it, but now it won't go away. Everyone asks you if your're okay and you put on the neutral facade that no one can get through and replay as normally as possible. You treasure those moments alone, not just because its time away from a busy setting, but because it gives you an opportunity to stop the lying and fake personality that you put on in public. If you let someone get close enough to you, inside your heart, all you can do is wonder when you'll be hurt again. So you keep everyone at an arms distance, even if you don't intentionally try to. It happens automatically. You eventually find the betrayal or let down that comes from getting too close, and you shut down and close everything out; switching to autopilot to get through what comes next: the array of emotions that you can't stop or stall, but the pathetic feelings that you can't turn off no matter what you do. The secrets you hold inside overwhelm you, but you can't let them out, you can't have anyone seeing the real you because that would mean actually letting someone in to the darkest parts of your mind. So instead, you go day by day, through the routine that you perfected to feel as little emotion as possibe. You attach yourself to movies and music and books to escape the reality that you live in; to try and put yourself in a different life and experience, hoping and dreaming that those perfect lives would one day be yours. You know they wil never come, but you can't help but keep the secret locked away with the rest of it. You keep it locked, never opening it and you throw away the key, because to you, that's the only way you know how to live throughout the day.