the man

Be afraid of the man who you really are. The one that lurks in the crevices of this city at broad daylight. He who waylays past the corner of the street waiting to ambush you with the truth you hide so well. Be afraid of him whenever you go out with your friends on a Saturday night. Whenever you're asked about the matters of your heart, you scoff. A scoff that laments the history of your jaded heart. A scoff punctuated by a manufactured strength, a strength, or a pretense which prophesies to the world that you need no loving arms to caress you or to listen at your whims before he doze off to sleep.

But that man who you really are, the man that peeled himself off of you, oh he, he laughs at you with derision. "Are you kidding me?" He knows you melt whenever you receive a random message from a boy. He knows you trail off with wishful thinking. He knows and has observed how you bleed with pride. He knows your truth. He knows that for every scrub of soap you do when you take your morning bath, you cannot wash off your desire from your skin. The man who you really are knows how many lies got stuck in your throat, how you reel in surprise whenever he doffs his hat to greet you on a random night through an attractive face, how many songs you still want to believe that underpins love as your prime virtue, how you pine for a name, how bad you want for Pandora's box to finally open itself wide and find love with his strong hands receiving you.

Be afraid of the man who you really are. The tall, lanky man that trips you whenever you feel like everything is falling in place. He who tucks you in at night with a blanket of thoughts. The things that you repress hence the things that you dream about. He who has bloodshot eyes and grating voice. He who taunts at all your bedtime prayers, saying, "But by Jove, I am your final honesty alight in the dark." Be afraid of him. For only you know him. And he knows you. And your lifetime familiarity has bred loving contempt between the two of you, especially when you and him meet eye to eye before the mirror.

Be afraid of him. No one else but him. No one else.

And for all this pretense, I am, and always been, afraid of him.