Armor and Flesh

I wear easy tears on my face, hiding trails of forced laughter and sad truths
I wear honesty as a disguise, cloaking me in its warm hues of half truths.
I wear vulnerability as a shield that stops people from seeing too far
I wear secrets on my sleeve to shield my heart

And under that? I am naked. it's just me under these clothes.
Alone, with my skin and and a blade that no one knows
At last, they have scarred, they are but scabs
All too soon, they fade, they do not last

My skin is not soft.
It is scarred and stretched, mapping out my life so far.
It bulges with the guilt, buckling from the weight of my mistakes; marred.
It bruises in agony over things I have learned to agonize over.
It is marked with a tally for every mistake that shouldn’t have been mine.

My skin is not warm.
The cold, the ice in my veins crawling like blood thirsty snakes.
The only heat on my skin from the metallic waterfall on my wrist as it aches.
The treacherous embrace of "mother knows best"
The only warmth in my cold dead chest