And they ask, What is your inner child saying?

A foolish question from a society blind to the quiet anguish of a young man.

They never saw the fragile boy hidden beneath the surface,

The one who learned too early how to bury his pain.

It wasn’t the world he needed, he thought,

Smiling through the laughter of his own birthday party.

The room was full—friends, family,and loved ones.

Yet he wasn’t truly there.

His heart, heavy with despair, bled pure love,

Only to watch it spill into nothingness.

While others drank deeply from the joy of life,

He slipped away, unnoticed, into the sanctuary of his darkness.

Perhaps this wasn’t the universe where he could ever win.

Perhaps this life was a cruel design.

Behind the locked door, beneath the suffocating silence,

He wept, sobbing like a child lost in the night.

His tears carried the weight of stories he could never tell,

Of a boy trapped in a room,

A boy whose very body became his cage.

Knocks at the door.

“Hey, wake up! Come outside!”

He pressed a trembling hand over his mouth,

Smothering the sound of his anguish.

“He must be asleep,” they said,

Their voices fading into the noise of the world.

He exhaled, fragile and alone,

Walking to the mirror where his reflection waited.

Tears streaked his face, eyes hollow with fear and loneliness.

He washed away the evidence,

For the world must never see.

With a forced smile, he opened the door,

Rejoining the crowd, his mask firmly in place.

He danced beneath the lights,

A performer in his own tragedy,

While the truth remained locked in the shadows of his soul.