People see me smiling

Shining like the follower of the sun (son) I am

But they do not know I am ever so anxious

And not a bit confident

Even as I am on stage I can feel my hands sweating

Beads on my neck

I am afraid of scared

And I am afraid of what scared looks like

It looks like a hand shaking

A girl who cries in her bedroom

And writes poems about the pain

They remind me of this one

So I have a process: I cry, I write, and I perform

I am not as pretty as I look

I put on a makeuped smile

I joke because I would rather do that than cry

I tell myself “I wish I was a clown, at least this would be funny”

I laugh about everything and cry about nothing

So the bottle I am keeping my feelings in is filling up rather quickly

I want to be numb sometimes

I wanna pretend that I don’t hurt

Truth is I’ve been hurting since day 1

I wanna pretend that my tears are fake

And that I have allergies

That dust fell in my eye and

I rubbed them too much

I wanna pretend that these tears

don’t exist

That the sniffling of my nose

Is just a common cold

I wanna pretend that I’m fine

I wanna tip off my hat and hug everybody

But my exterior and my internal desires do not usually match

My flesh wants to slap somebody

My spirit wants to give love to everybody

So I am somewhere in the middle

I appear on stage: a Nigerian princess with sharp wit and a sharper tongue

But the truth is I have overconfidence to cover up

my fragile

childlike confidence

Which stands on stilts

But onto poetry

For balance

I hope I can rise instead of fall

I believe that I can stare you in the face and become a lie

Instead of telling you what’s up, I’ll say fine

I can’t tell you I really don’t know how I can afford this thing called college

My parents aren’t as supportive as I make them seem

And even I am starting to question my dreams

Maybe that’s why they turn into nightmares

I wanna pretend that I’m fine so I will

Fake it ‘til I make it

With a makeuped smile on my face

I will say

I’m confident

I’m beautiful

And Yes, I’m fine

I’m not a beautiful liar

I’m a beautiful lie

And you don’t even realize it

So what exactly does anxiety look like

If you pull back the curtains called a smile

And look at my roller-coaster of a life

You’ll realize that it’s on the edge

Cliff hanging coaster of life

Will you realize then

Or sir will you still question me because I make jokes

Or madame will you still wonder how I keep it together

I have kept my lies so long

Maybe I starting to believe them

That I am actually very practiced at this art

Maybe I starting to improve

Maybe I’m happy

Maybe the tears and the smiles are both

genuine

Maybe my roller-coaster is just taking off

I am a thunderhawk with casualties everywhere I go

Everlasting Pain mixed in with pure joy

So I become everlasting joy