Something bad has happened,
I know it’s hard to tell.
We all smile when we leave
and step out into the sun,
but once we walk into the shadows,
that’s when you can see,
that’s when we drop our smiles
and let a tear trail down our cheek
because we won’t,
we can’t,
speak of what haunts our dreams
and turns them into nightmares,
and we don’t sleep anymore
because the nightmares that we thought weren’t real
climbed out of our ears into the world
and now we cry behind the laughter
and we smile to cover up our tears.
Hoping that someone will see through our clenched teeth
to the blood that flows free
from our tongues
down our throats
into our stomach
and weighs us down
so that our steps are slow
and our shoulders hunched.
And we just wish someone would ask if we were doing alright,
but even if they did
we would just reply
that we were just fine
but silently hoped that they would see what we craved to say
through the fear in our too wide eyes rimmed with red
because as I said before.
No one gets much sleep anymore.