Skinless

They say feel it all—

but they don’t know what it costs.

Every smile I fake

is a war I lost.

I walk in—

room full of ghosts,

none of them mine,

but I carry them close.

I’m the echo of pain

that never got voiced,

the scream in the silence

that never had choice.

You laugh?

I flinch.

You cry?

I drown.

Your storm becomes mine

and I still don’t know how.

I’m skinless—

raw nerve,

open wound,

a soul with no shell

in a world that consumes.

I bleed empathy,

choke on your grief,

and you call me too much

like that’s some kind of thief.

But I never asked

to be the sponge,

the mirror,

the grave.

I just became

what your silence made.

So don’t call it a gift

when it guts me alive.

Don’t call it strength

when I barely survive.

---