This Hidden

It's that place I call home;

Dark, damp and lonely;

No place anyone would choose to roam;

The outside scares me;

But inside I don't want to be alone;

There is a struggle within me that needs connection but fears being left out in the cold;

I get out of bed with plans for days ahead;

Instead find myself immobilized and under my bedspread;

Searching for my cloak of disguise;

Keeping up this charade letting no one know the battle that pulls me from inside;

The life force of energy fills me but the world depletes me;

They all don't know the ghosts that haunt me secretly;

The pain, loss, insecurities that coexist under the surface;

The strength it takes to keep them at bay it's like managing a circus;

They don't know how one misspoken word can put an ache so deep in my heart that I question my own purpose;

The one thing I do know… is I am more than this darkness.