“Happiness only real when shared” — Christopher McCandless Bus 142 

We talk ourselves into a corner

When all we are trying to do

Is to escape the fear we project

Onto the only world we knew

You would rather trade connection

Remain alone in an empty room

The fear of abandonment, vulnerability, and intimacy

You avoid the scars on the face in the mirror, an undiscovered gloom

The loneliness you feel

A self imposed trap

You never see the dream for what it is

For you, it’s only just a nap

The irony of the nightmare

It is not just a dream

The way you’ve lived your life

Won’t help you if you never come clean

You built a shield no one can see

A quiet, practiced vacancy

You call it peace, this careful space

But grief still lingers in its place

You learned to need a little less

To dodge the weight of tenderness

Each time a hand reached out to stay

You trained your heart to turn away

Not out of hate, not out of pride

But something deep inside

A child who learned that love could leave

Now fears what they still dare believe

John Bowlby saw what we deny

The hidden truths we bury deeply inside

Attachment bends beneath the strain

Of silent loss and unnamed pain

You move through life composed, contained

Yet feel so subtly unclaimed

And though you long to just belong

You’ve taught yourself that that is wrong

But walls don’t heal what they protect

They only help us disconnect

And in the end, what hurts the most

Is needing love, but fearing it close

RSP

…

DCG