Saturday, April 28, 2012

Can I Come Out Now As the Real Me?

As life takes a turn into the darkness,
Solitary living is no longer a comfort.
While you feel imprisoned in yourself,
You wish someone could rescue you.

You wish that everything would end,
That worries would resolve themselves.
The pressure to handle everything right,
That intense feeling is almost too much.

Trapped tears remain behind my eyes,
Secrets stay safe in the back of my mind.
The pressure to please others is immense,
I yet to learn to not care what they think.

I want to be myself and not have "selves",
But cannot let go of their earned approval.
Actual me contains parts many would hate,
I accept them yet am fearing their rejection.

I am not the person they expect me to be,
I am not straight, conservative, and perky.
Instead I am a realist, free spirited, bisexual,
And not as religious as some would think.

I am ready to let my true self out in my life,
But am fearing rejection and hate from family.
I am fearing being kicked out of certain things,
I fear my life being ruined by my truthfulness.

However, I am no longer comfortable living,
With secrets and my many assumed persona's.
I feel I am old enough to live as my true self,
But am I ready to surrender and face my critics?

2 comments:

Leah: Not Otherwise Specified said...

Ooooh, I love it! Very real.

And I hide a lot about myself from my extended family, and some things (like my bi-sexuality) from my parents.

For me, it's okay to hide my religious and political beliefs from the older guys (my grandparents who are in their late 80's are probably better off not knowing these things) but I don't intentially keep them from others.

My sexuality never comes up, because I'm in a relationship with a man (which made things a lot easier, telling wise).

Everyone pretty much knows that I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore, and that I'm a liberal. But they don't know anything specifically about my beliefs, and I'm fine with that.

Great poem, it really has made me think.

Rachael said...

Thanks for your comment and I agree. Now that my mind is in normal/daytime mode, I can think better and I would say I would still keep parts of me to myself with extended family, my immediate family to a smaller degree and work. Just want to be more honest in places like church where I feel like I am someone fake sometimes just to protect myself. That is a place I should be able to be honest, but I am not. Luckily I am only there on Sunday mornings now.

I was kindly reminded by my husband that I already am my real self mostly with my friends now, but that took a long time for me to do. Thanks for the good feedback, made me think also.