Believe Me When I Say I'M Hurting

How do I smile briefly, and turn my head, Answer questions, make it light When every mention fills limbs with dread But I can’t descend to expose the fight I’ve created a hardened, coarsened outer shell That moved on quickly, barely cares That faced the world, and shall not let dwell The inside creature, who not well fares The collapsing, sobbing, wailing woman inside me Cleaves to the floor, pulls it close And her clawing, fighting fingers wrench me Begging for but a lighter dose And her haggard hair spills about her bare neck And tears left black tracks to her chin And a torn, worn dress her bony shoulders, bedeck And her wrists… oh she is so thin. So the tempest calms and, quiet now, she lies In the cavernous, bleak, echoing hall, And you could look to the reflective surface of her eyes As she’s wound in so tight a ball For these eyes are repeated outside and in Haunted with misery, aching But unreachable is the outer shell’s twin As one of them stirs, waiting.