I can’t see you. I’ve been looking in the mirror for as long as I can remember. I refuse to look away, and I can’t see through.

I can’t hear you, because the silence has grown laud and now I’m too proud to think even you could break it.

I don’t know you, because I spend all my time on me. I think about my plans, I talk about my feelings. I regret what could’ve been and fear what might be.

The thought that you’re been kind doesn’t cross my mind, and I’ve been told that you care but what evidence is there that I could slow down and not disappear.

I have yet to do anything great that would justify a break, and how will I be worth anything if I don’t show them what I can create? What I can do, who I can be; when I do something worth showing, that’s when I’ll sleep.

What good am I if my hands are empty, If I have no weapon when my value is questioned?

My feelings are my king. But I am not their servant, I am their slave. bowing to their every demand like it was for them I was made.

You tell me not to worry, that any burden you’ll gladly take, but how am I not t worry when my worth is at stake?

Forgetting everyone else has their own life, I assume they’re all thinking of me. What I eat, what I’m wearing, if I’m the prettiest in the room, or the best on the team. At the same time I dread their stares, terrified they’ll see only a fraud. That past the posts and filters and personality is just me; a kid horrified at the thought of being ignored.

I can’t feel the next foothold, and the ground beneath me is weak. i climb higher and higher knowing if I fall there is nothing below ready to catch my soul.

I am desperate to reach the top, so I no longer take it one step as a time. Surely I can make it if I jump high enough, so I frantically grasp at what I think to be mine.

If I grit my teeth, my fear may go away, but in its absence roars to life my pride, mauled by shame.

God I don’t know you. But not for lack of belief. I don’t know you because I’ve been trying to know myself instead, and I keep coming up empty.