Dissonance #

i feel a tension,
caught between the want to be understood
and the terror of exposure, a raw fear
of letting them see too much,
of letting them see me.
i crave that someone might know my heart,
be able to speak back what i dare not say—
yet beneath that craving lies a shadow,
a quiet whisper that they’ll see me as less.
less than they imagined,
less than i hope to be,
just less.
i see it in the way they smile,
or sometimes in their silence.
i am sure that one day they’ll leave,
and it won’t even be a surprise,
but a slow, steady slipping away
like sand through careless fingers.
these opposing forces,
pull me in different ways,
until i stand frozen—
like delicate paper on the edge of tearing,
thin enough that a word, sharp or careless,
might tear through it, through me.
every conversation, a fine line to walk,
one step too far might open me up too wide,
another, and i’m closing off again.
i want to share everything,
but there’s a knot of fear tied tight in my chest,
and the idea of showing too much
feels like stepping into a pit.
they’ll see my cracks, my flaws,
the twisted pieces of me
that i try so hard to hide.
and once they see,
will they stay?
sometimes i smile when i’m breaking,
laugh when i’m terrified,
because letting them hear the discord in me
would be worse.
inside, it’s chaos, a symphony of missteps,
but i make sure it stays unheard,
the wrong notes covered with polite words.
i want to be known,
and i want to be invisible.
i see myself, too, but only in fragments—
each glance in the mirror shows another crack.
i don’t know which part of me is real,
or which part they’ll see first.
i’m holding my breath,
waiting for something to change,
but nothing does.