There are times I stare out into the openness
of a quiet world
watching my reflection cry.
Sometimes I don’t feel my feelings are heard;
sometimes I watch my own tears dry.
If you really knew me,
you would know
my heart is the microphone of my emotional
suffocation. I’ve once spoken with an empty voice
and felt my loneliness was my only choice.
If you really knew me,
you would see the hidden pain
that downpours from the pores of my soul
during moments when sadness rains. In times of need
I have had no hand to reach out to and that’s when
my mind bleeds.
And there are times I smile when laughter fails
to breathe; those times when I stand alone
with only just a few memories left of that place
I used to know as home.
If you really knew me,
you would know I use my words
as my mission to my own salvation and my ink
is the blood I need to find that path
back to a place of belonging. I write to heal
the inner scars of my maturation
because there are times I feel I don’t exist
in a world that knows my name
but does not recognize the deepness
in my eyes and the foundation of my self-healing.
I am often assumed to be more than I even
believe I am. I suffocate behind a mask placed on the face
of expectations afraid and sometimes ashamed
to reveal the real me,
the true me
and the me that has lived many years inside a capsule
of ugliness that I allowed to be the mastermind
in holding me down.
If you really knew me,
you would know
I am a survivor with the passion to break through
the concrete off possible failure and strive
during times others fail to recognize that I am alive.
And if you really knew me,
you would know
there are times I just rather go unknown.
© 2010
Tarringo T. Vaughan
