On stormy nights,

I stare through the window—

not longing to be outside,

but lost somewhere

inside my own thoughts.

The thunder sounds like screams,

like pain finally finding a voice.

The rain falls like tears

from a breaking heart

that held back for far too long.

A heart trapped

inside a bottled-up cage

of emotions.

Almost like me.

Perhaps nature understands

what I cannot explain—

the loneliness of being

in a room full of faces

and still feeling completely alone.

So I wear

a never-ending smile,

and laugh with hollow laughter

while silence screams inside me.

Bottled anger.

Sorrow.

Pain.

Grief.

Grief for what I could have been.

Grief for what could have been.

And somewhere beneath it all

is the child I once was—

silenced

before childhood even had the chance

to be over.

Adulthood was all I knew.

I learned to be a face

before I learned to be a person.

A face that wasn't meant to be heard,

only seen.

A face meant to smile.

A face meant to disappear

into the background.

So when the thunder screams,

and the rain begins to fall,

I sit beside the window

and listen.

Because for once,

something outside of me

sounds exactly

like the storm

I've been carrying

inside.