“I love you for your strength, I love you for your skin”
“My skin?”
“ Yes, how you put up with this, your tough skin.”
The compliments I dreaded. But every time I was subjected to these, I smiled, my lips sealed. Because behind what you see, covered by this ‘tough skin’ is a secret pile of shattered dreams. A thick heavy chain pulled me down.
Every day is a battle against this fate. I mean what can I really say? Freedom from the world is what I seek. And I have stayed curled up, too scared to live.
See, right when I start winning, I lose my own version of me. Then I’m depicted as what anyone wants me to be. So that is what everyone believes.
I may never understand it, how someone so unreal, someone behind a screen, is out to kill what they don’t know about me.  
Maybe it’s how I portray myself?
Or maybe it’s my dreams, are they too far fetched?
How is it? That with all these views and I barely feel seen? I may be so naïve that the universe sent these comments to attack me.
Someone told me to pay no attention to haters, that they’re only projecting their insecurities. But tell me, what has that got to do with me? When did I sign up to be a shield?
Now it’s like being brave has been defined by this, …taking every formed contempt and making it my drive.
‘Ignoring’ the resulting pain, and still being able to smile.
I have lost all faith in empathy, as in my cage, all I feel is empty.
No, you can’t see my scars, what hurt me barely exists.
Yet these hidden wounds endlessly bleed,
I’m too weak to scroll through every battle. But I can pick and choose what I can handle.
My eyes closed, all I can hear are my thoughts,
“Everything else, everyone there, outside this cage”
“No one can get under my beautiful skin – my tough skin”
“One, two, three…breathe!”