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Too many of us hold in far too many troubles inside

Too few of us have someone in which they can confide

Pain and anger from hidden memories of past years

Collecting in our minds are life’s scarring souvenirs

Permanent problems traced back to our childhoods

Often not released and very often not understood

I see many wearing manipulated smiles with defeated, sad eyes

I see many who are suffering under a well-worn disguise

Below this thick, dirty ice we all have an abundance of incessant tears

We won’t let this ice melt due to not wanting to feel our hurt or our fear

The fear that by a cruel flood we’ll be uncomfortably taken away

We won’t let this harmful aching out so under this familiar ice we all stay

I’ve been working very hard at staying angry so I won’t be so depressed

Too many of us have unresolved heartache, and too many of us are a mess

I’ve been throwing this scorched blanket of hatred over my intimidating sadness

I’ve seen so many smothering their feelings to try to block out reality’s madness

Too many of us want to cry but cannot find someone they feel they can cry to

Someone they wish they could allow to look behind the curtain to what is true

Too few of us in times of trouble have someone they feel they can really turn to

Someone they wish they could find who accepts their faults and their point of view

Quiet battles raging behind our peaceful facades

Putting on great performances while feeling like frauds

What we grow up and see is often what we fear most we’ll turn out to be

We lock the contaminated feelings away, and we make sure to lose the key

I can still be the boy who wonders why you can’t say you love me

It’s time to let this repressed pain that’s been kept under this ice free

I can still be the lonely boy who feels he doesn’t belong

Pretending I’ve moved on, but I’ve still been haunted all along

Locked these tireless ghosts away I didn’t want to see

But out of sight yet in my head they still fed off of the life inside me

I can still feel the hurt of the boy that you couldn’t tell you love

I can still feel the wounds of recollections I can’t get rid of

I’ve been trying to drown my sorrows, but I could not

I’ve just been drowning myself, and of myself I lost a lot

I’ve been trying to put out my flourishing anger

But in doing so I have only made it much stronger

Pouring wine on my worries, but they never die

Drinking in denial while all I like about me cries

Pouring wine on my self-confidence, now soaked and barely alive

Drinking plenty of self-destruction, and this destruction has thrived

Weak will is the victor, and I drink down torture

Even to myself I now feel like a hated stranger

I can still be the lonely boy who feels he doesn’t belong

Telling myself I’ve forgotten, but I’ve still been haunted all along

I never thought that this hollow mannequin is what I would become

That what I would look the most forward to is absorbing the numb

I know that I am now repeating your immense mistakes

This depleted, degraded version of me I can no longer take

I refuse to keep telling myself these habitual, frail lies

I’m ridding myself of this harrowing routine that I now despise

What we grow up and see is often what we fear most we’ll turn out to be

We lock the contaminated feelings away, and we make sure to lose the key

But in attempting to forget the past we can become what we most feared

My heart is polluted and cold, and my exhausted mind is diluted and unclear

I can still be possessed by the boy who wants to ask you why you can’t say you love me

I must now allow myself to let this intolerable pain that looms under this stained ice free

I hid all you did and locked it away

I forgive you

I never thought I’d be the same way

I forgive myself too

By Adam Keith McElwain

Copyright Adam Keith McElwain Poetry