---

Sh, here goes a secret:
There are masks all over my face.
I have a rule on my shoulders
and an evident shiver in my pace.

I don't know if I'm used to it,
to all the pain I hide.
I don't know if I deserve seas
of happiness' tide.

My skin conceals the monster,
the monster inside the walls of my heart
like the way my eyelids cover
the tears of what should be my best art.

I don't know
if anyone knows that the monster
makes me bleed
just enough for my knees to shiver.

I must not speak about it.
"Yes," they said, "you must not speak."
Deadly thumps, a bludgeon.
"Sh," they said, "dear, don't you speak."

I'm afraid; it becomes
stronger through my plead.
I'm afraid; when we run,
it is no longer what I feed.

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