You button every feeling beneath your skin,
Convincing yourself that composure will win;
You polish your armor and call yourself strong,
While everything buried keeps learning your wrong.

Your soul becomes fluent in swallowing sound,
A house where the windows are nailed to the ground;
Each feeling denied leaves a knock in the wall,
Then learns, when unanswered, to hammer and call.

Soon anger keeps company with unspent grief,
And tears start demanding their overdue relief;
The pressure grows teeth, starts devouring the seams,
Then ruptures the silence you stitched through your dreams.

So loosen the armor; let something get through,
There’s courage in feeling what frightens you too;
For truth kept imprisoned grows cruel in its cell—
You cannot stay whole while pretending you’re well.