Who am I?

Who am I?

By: Kathryn Oakland

 

Most days I feel like a crisply ironed shirt

With each button buttoned up to the chin,

Or a complete set of china, each one in its place

Inside a tall glass case to ward away warm caresses,

To prevent the shattering of perfection.

 

Some days I can’t contain the cracking

Just below the surface and I become undone,

Naked to the winds and seas of emotion

And I want to break that glass case,

But I don’t.

 

Every strike I plan for the world,

I instead turn it on me.

I pound my flaws away

As if I were metal on an anvil,

Yet I am soft.

 

I see myself as a white blouse,

Pristine other then a stain on the sleeve

That I obsessively hide from others

Until I can’t take it any more

And rip it away.

 

I am that set of china,

Not really complete.

But I hide the missing pieces,

So no one else will see.