Shell

Is it pride that keeps me silent? 

I am disconsolate that loneliness

Is the home I'll inhabit 

Until I outgrow it

Like the hermit crab, 

Unattached

And weighed down by 

The things he carries

In the shell he wears with pride.

Or is it dread?

Am I afraid I never mattered at all?

Do I hold back because of how I might look to you:

Foolish - like a love-sick schoolgirl

Worrying that you don't care at all

And that my fear and pride 

Are unfounded and unreal

Because I do not exist for you. 

This was not my choice. 

But you were never really here at all. 

Now the tears. 

Why should I suffer? 

And yet, I cannot reason pain away. 

I am still trying to outrun it

As if going round in circles

Means I'm moving on. 

I could admit my own mistake

And the madness that possessed me

I could excuse it

And anyone would understand, 

I think.

But I can't fathom why it lingers,

Why I'm frozen and still bound

By a grief that will not go away. 

How many times will I choke back

Another painful sob

As the world around me 

Moves forward

And laughs 

And plays

And loves and

Lives?

How much longer will

I live in the conch inside my head?

With every sun setting on 

A shell of memories and unrealized hopes,

Of better days and

Heartbreak.