Feelings don’t come freshly documented for my investigation.
And although I am overcome, spiraling, gut shaken
Be it delight. Exhaustion. Frustration. Sharing in tears.
Their true nature is buried over the years.

Words have might, make a child sway or take flight
And when I’m dragged by the wrist, interrogated
On why I’m not delighted when it’s proper and right
When I can’t sculpt my tone in response to emotions inflated

It’s branded as wrong, my “inability” to express.
My natural insistence on sharing my world my way
With my voice and face preferring not to betray
My mind, my day. You’re asking me to undress:
To force false feels out my lips. To speak to impress.
My self-sense shrivels, stamped Emotionless.

After years of digging dusted old paths through my heart
I saw through the smoke from society’s scars…
Oh, my, what a sight, a well deeper than dark,
A knowledge resounding that I possess many measures
Of pleasures, of sorrows, of passionate sparks:
My soul is an immeasurable collection of treasures.

So why do my passions fall flat on foreign ears?
Why was I shrouded in labels of ice-cold,
Robotic, without reason for tears?
Why must I contort my voice to be validated
Simply because I haven’t yet told
That my inside and outside are miscalibrated?

Most important of all: Why have I been in hiding
From my only self, in a cloak of misguidance?
So quick to cast my softest heart in steel
Not knowing of more than but one way to feel?