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.