Walking

How can I
Just keep living
How can I simply
Keep breathing
Continue walking forward...

Slice me open
Find my heart
Brittle and black
Cracked
Bloody

Trudging through life
Put through hell
Yet I'm still walking

I don't know why
Or how

I've been beaten
Bruised
Slashed
Crumpled
Burned

How am I still whole?
How can no one notice?

No one peels off the wrapping paper
Shiny and bright
Facades, all of them
I'm not what I seem

No one unties the bow
Keeping me together
No one unravels me
Saves me

And so I continue to wither
A painted flower
Dying without sunlight

No one knows
Understands
Realizes

I'm dead
Yet alive...

And I keep walking
Forwards

Forever.