It’s a crime to look at myself and call what I see a person.
Those who have been pulled in by my life’s gravity but not made crash landings on the the surface expect me to be so much more.

No mistake is little enough,
No triumph adequately enormous,
Nothing happens outside my world worth changing,
and the ones I love can’t see through the thick flesh.

Any trust that was bestowed upon this broken man
vanishes like smoke between fingers,
and scars carved by public expectation
will never clot,
will never close,
will never heal,
and will never stop bleeding the smoke.

Is this my curse, world?
To be bombarded by standards of average,
to be beaten to a pulp by my own state of independance until I fall to my knees, but without the power to
just…
stop…
walking…
On a high mountain pass without guardrails to hold me back,
so high that the clouds surround me in an embrace and no one can peer through them
to see who I truly am.

World, is it only a matter of time until the clouds disappear,
and the wind knocks me from the sky?
How much longer do I have, with the clouds and the cloaks and the smoke to shield me from the inevitable?

It won’t be the end.
Life goes on.
The smoke covers me, head to toe once again

Conceal the fear…
Conceal the hurt…
Conceal the love…

Between me and the clouds,
I am hit with the infinite rainbow of black,
and a neverending rain of white,
until those pulled by gravity run from me,
while those suffering from crash landings have nothing to do but fall from the clouds with me.

The smoke is all that’s left.