We guard our boundaries,

build our walls,

protecting ourselves

in the time between

our first

and last breaths

from the very thing

that would

save us.

Most of us

are not taught

to speak

or live from

the center of ourselves

and so we

fail each other

in a lonely

endless sorrow of

pretense.

We wear masks,

quoting appropriate

dialogues

and give each other

the required

space necessary

to suffocate

our souls.

Words of love

with action lacking,

compassion for

the faceless

world

feeds our ego,

protecting us from

intimacy, empathy

and risk of

vulnerability

to the one

before us.

We hold within us

both fear

and longing

of being known

and understood as we

truly are,

we filter our pictures,

edit our words,

dilute our passions

and cry out

only in silence

with our face lifted

to the night sky,

that no one

really knows us

at all.