Of course I have time to listen to your multitude of problems

It’s not like I could be doing hundreds of other more productive things right now.

Do you see the sympathy in my face?

I’m trying really hard to show you the concern I have for your struggles

For more effect perhaps I should furrow my brow

Would it mean more if I gave you a hearty slap on the back?

Should I tell you that things will sort themselves out?

Let me place a hand on your shoulder and with a more serious tone,

Remind you of how wonderfully talented you are

Think that’s enough to sooth your self-doubt?

Just like that I’ve calmed your mind

In five minutes flat, I’ve proved you to be flawlessly divine

And you walk off a like a whole new person

You don’t even bother to look back,

At invisible old me hardly even taken aback

I know the façade cannot always last

Sometimes it splinters and cracks

Where the me—the real me—tires to make its presence known

It throws its arms through the bars and screams

But the cries fall like trees in a forest

Unseen, unheard

The real one is the one who leans against the concrete wall

Feels the ice and the chills racing across the skin

The real one wears vibrant colors,

In hope that some passerby might check in-

Might realize that I’m human too

I just don’t know who

The only me they see

Is the one who takes the time to talk them out of suicide

Who pushes my own feelings out of sight, out of mind

I become a journal for them to spill out their regrets

Their ink runs across my skin, and when they leave

I feel the needles puncturing my aching heart

Their stories tattooed in my cells

If they’re going to tattoo my body

Then I want to ink up theirs just a little

I want them to know my story

The story they never took the time to discover

They don’t know the fear of finding his face

The agony of solitary disgrace

They don’t know the depression creeping inside

The constancy of being denied

They don’t know of the gleaming blade

That trims the icy skin where scars won’t fade

They don’t know the self-hate

The don’t know the set date

They don’t know!

How could they know?

When I hide behind this curtain,

Seclude myself in hell

They don’t see because I don’t show them

I don’t want them to know it’s where I dwell

Lurking in the shadows,

The recesses in my mind

I want them all to know my suffering

But I don’t want to let them inside

So I’ll make my grand entrance

I will bring the stage to life

I will cry my story unto the world

Ink away the pains and strife

See the blade touch the skin

This is how the end begins

Red ink will coat my hands

To match the flowers in my hair

The red curtain they’ll drape upon me

And this, my grand exit, is prepared