Walls

They can be paper thin, but feel like chasms. In our darkest hours, they protect us from showing our face to the world, blocking muffled cries and hushed arguments. It’s funny how something so simple can provide us with so much safety, so much freedom to feel how we want, to admit the things we’re afraid to say out loud. We feel safe behind our walls because no one can look beyond them and see what we don’t want them to see. They give us power over how we present ourselves to the world, because at the end of the day we can retreat within our walls and breathe again.

It can also be a dangerous place to be, a crutch that enables us to shy away from things better addressed in the light. It can become a place where we allow our dark thoughts to run rampant and consume us in ways that no one will ever see and no one will ever know. In our desperation for cover, we block out those who care, those who could help, leaving them powerless on the other side. Even if they were reaching for us, there’s no way to know.

They can’t see in and we can’t see out.