I Am You.

I receive them praises with a shocked smile. Internally wondering why such mediocre would be celebrated with such kind words and hefty claps.

Don't they have a clue that I faked strength to be here? That I am actually the coward who had too much pride to lose? That I have won nothing yet regardless of seeming to have done so. That I am weak and curious at the same time.

I hear them talk about my pain. Like I am over and done with it. Like this smile is actually real. Like I am completely healed. How sad? If they only knew. My depths reek of wounds yet to be addressed. That pen and music are my treasured therapy.

Some are moved to tears talking about how I inspire them to be something I am not... Strong. Compliments keep overflowing on my wide smile right beneath my sad eyes. And behind those eyes, past ghosts and fresh demons are fighting over space suffocating my soul.

I imagine them standing before their reflections; talking to their 'weak' inner selves about how they should be enduring shit just like I 'did' and how it will be all better one day as it is on my end and my inner-self scolds me over the masks I adorned when they saw me.

I break down when they are sharing their pain because as much as they think I wouldn't, I still relate to it. I echo their lonely sobs in the middle of the night as their worlds shatter. I feel their sharp pinch of betrayal or their unseen weight of mistrust because I have my share of it.

How can I make them see we are all flawed? That even what we think is perfection has its flaws or its cost to be as admirable as it is to us. That I am flawed.

That I am work in progress as all humanity is. That I have a lot to work on spiritually to really be free of what they are dealing with but in a different unexplainable way. That we are in our own space and time so we fight for our sanity at different phases of our lives.

That if we respected each other's fights and journeys healing would be acquired faster. That we don't have to understand why others are who they are but just respect who they are. That regardless of everything we have been brainwashed to see or believe in, our skeletons are all alike and that should mean something.