i'm trying too hard to forget to just be me. forgetting to forget the imagined audience. who i wish would understand me, yet never know me. because i can't bear to show what i don't know. this is why i discuss trivialities. this is why i seem so strong. because my shell won't be cracked if i make sure you never find out how to. yet i want to open up. i want to see who i am. i want to see. but it terrifies me to think that maybe you love me for what i say and not who i am. My politics just aren't me; just another wall between you and i. The select few who've seen through the facade, i pushed away in horror. afraid of what they knew. i withheld so much about myself to keep a f**ked-up advantage and now i see i never had anything to gain. so now there's no more trying to "Just be me". no more hiding behind a language. just expose myself for what i've been; a fraud, cashing in on rhetoric that i learned to abuse, what i used to push you away. that i used to win even though.. every single time i lost. every single time.