Hiding Place

Hiding Place - Thomas Shiels I've been hiding my depth with a carpet of self consciousness, threaded by the needle of misconception. Beauty is found within but by God I hope they don't find where I hide my self. When they find out who I am, who will I be to them? Or will they even care, only avoiding it by delving deeper into their own affairs. These thoughts haunt me, keeping my self away from who you imagine me to be. This carpet I put over my hiding place covers up the home to the man behind the face. Not that I live in disgrace but would hate to be seen as some one discontent with the life he's been given. That's what's been keeping my hiding driven. This dead man within keeps this chrysalis, my shell, from giving. The man within me sees light through a hole in the carpet eaten away by moths. "I hear footsteps overhead but can't make out a word that's being said. What would it mean anyway from a man who is dead. Long forgotten by the shell, living in the darkness of hell within myself. This self torment keeps me from being me as I dig under the basement of my mind to hide from the light creeping in from the carpet untwined. Not that I'm scared of the light but I don't want this light to feel the need to reach me. I don't need to be seen by any one upstairs, what would someone up there want anything to do with a man living in the rotten air infested by lies and sleeping in the cloak of my own despair? The dark is my home and the shell holds it within. I've never thought of leaving the one place I hold dear but I wouldn't know what to die for if I didn't live here. No one can hear my whimpers and tears hitting the floor and echoing within the sphere of my soulless world. Blood pours from my head onto my hands. Feebly I smear my blood on the walls due to the pain of removing my eyes. I can't see but I can never unsee the things I did and the 'me'; whoever I used to be. I can't let this guilt be free and because of that it will never free me. As I trip and fall I realize that this removal of sight just makes this inner sense of guilt become stronger. I pray this pain will be here no longer. I guess I'll never be free from me. What hellish vices grip me? Are these my hands that clamp my flesh to this inner captivity? I'm just a cavity in a shell that lives a life of calamity, unwanted by the world that will never see me or what I am to be. What do I have to offer to a world full of life when I can't find life within myself? What God puts his hands on me to feel the welts I've grown due to the infection within my shell! Remove me from this God-forsaken hell." This carpet conceals the dead man hiding within me and gives little air for him to breathe. By God I hope the shell of a man I make out to be forgets the man I am underneath. The quotations symbolize the dead man speaking.