Express

I find it quite difficult to express myself, to show others what's underneath my carefully curated facade, an illusion that everything is fine, when in reality it's everything but. I'm haunted by the very thought that everyone I care for will abandon me the moment I show even the slightest hint of vulnerability. That even the smallest crack in my act, will encourage others to depart. To leave the mangled, jagged, and fractured phantom of who I used to be. It's pathetic really. How I rely on people's validation to go about my day. How bothered and uncomfortable I get at the very thought of someone disliking me. 

Perhaps it was the way I was brought up in the world. The way I had to practically plead and beg for my parents affection, for something that should have been given and not something I had to work for. my treacherous upbringing shaped me into who I am today. Into this broken and defective form. I suppose it can't be helped that I am the way that I am. Being taught that no one would ever take me seriously if I wasn't screaming until my needs penetrated the brick wall that stands between me and the very people that were supposed to protect me. To be my guide in life, who instead became the very people who made my life a living hell.

Part of the reason as to why I can't fully express myself is my family. They keep me trapped in a cage, dictating my every move. Clipping my wings before I ever learned how to fly. Diminishing the flame inside before it can ever become a blaze, a fire that can lash out, become too much. That's something I heard a plethora of times in my childhood, "I'm too much." "I'm too sensitive." "I'm too dramatic." When in reality, they're the one's who don't understand me. They've never made the initiative to genuinely comprehend the complexities that embody me.