It’s so easy to hide it,
\nbehind screens, or hands, or walls.
\nTo tuck your pain away where it can’t
\nmake things worse.\u00a0 Or better.<\/p>\n
I’ve heard voices break and connections go dead,
\nI’ve witnessed messages composed, deleted, and composed again,
\nThen still left unsent.
\nOr reduced to a single word.<\/p>\n
I’ve had doors slammed and locked in my face,
\nbacks turned to me, faces twisted away.
\nI’ve conversed through bathroom doors,
\nshields of hair and pulled up knees, comforters that failed to comfort.<\/p>\n
I’ve watched faces seal the sorrow in,
\nseen it bitten it off with tightened lips,
\nbeheld it smothered out by defenses I can’t image,
\nIn eyes deep as the well of souls.<\/p>\n
And I have hidden behind layers of my own.
\nVeils woven of dark humor, over walls built of analysis,
\nAround pain and fear and need I would burden no one else with.
\nYet I expected trust.<\/p>\n
Tears and trust are only easy for children.
\nFor us they must be earned, and shared.
\nThey cannot be taken, or stolen, or forced,
\nAnd they can be so easily lost.<\/p>\n
I’d rather hold clenched hands and shaking shoulders,
\nhear sobbed imprecations and wailed confessions,
\nI’d rather let sorrow soak my shirt and pain pierce my heart.
\nI’d rather suffer together than hide separately, and suffer still.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s so easy to hide it, behind screens, or hands, or walls. To tuck your pain away where it can’t make things worse.\u00a0 Or better. I’ve heard voices break and connections go dead, I’ve witnessed messages composed, deleted, and composed again, Then still left unsent….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53000,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52364\/revisions\/53000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}