Sensitivity

You are not the same as other people.

Everyone is different and yet, you are too much.

You always knew it.

That dark, twisted urge to feel pain and victimize yourself

it’s the thing you hate most in yourself.

It ruins everything you have.

Even when you think you’ve escaped, tried your best, and done it better than before —

you lose when you think you’ve won.

It’s easier to cut ties, to escape into your room.

To hide under the bed with the monsters in your head.

So many books scream that vulnerability is strength proof of being alive

and yet, I feel the salt on my cheeks as weakness.

And then the darkness comes.

But nothing is the same.

Your eyes are red and puffy.

You say rude things just so people will leave you alone

so you won’t burden them with it.

No matter how many times they say you’re not a burden

you know you are.

Because no one notices when you’re trying to be strong and succeeding.

That’s only for your eyes.

But they will see the tears in your soul.

You’re a vulnerable animal in a social arena.

You will be eaten if you don’t wear an iron mask.

Wake up.

Tear up.

Smile.

It’s pretty silly how vulnerability is called strength,

when in the animal world, it’s a sign of approaching death.

I can feel my thinking process return to the same iron wall,

just like it never truly left me.

You know it’s not the world, people, or pain it’s a storm inside of you.

And still, you don’t know what to do with it.

Either shut it all off and pretend you don’t care,

go cold, go numb,

or let it spill out

until you can’t even recognize yourself in the mirror.

There’s no middle.

Just quiet denial

or chaos.

And maybe that’s what hurts the most.