Walls

"These walls won't betray me.

These walls are like my safety."
-Dead Celebrity Status "If These Walls Could Talk"

I build walls. Big ones. I build walls that are armor. I build walls to keep everyone else out. I build walls to protect myself. I build walls to protect everyone else from me. Mostly, I build walls to hide.
I hide my emotions. I hide my pain. I hide anything that makes me vulnerable. I guess you could call me paranoid. You could also say I'm a coward.
I'd rather people see me "happy", I guess. I want them to see the big goofy smile. I want them to see the energy. I want them to hear my laugh, and laugh with me. I want them to see the "best" part of me. The part of me that doesn't hurt. The part that can smile through anything.
"These walls are my safety." These walls are my armor, my shell. They're my excuse.
Truth is, I'm not a people person. I get nervous. I prefer being alone, sitting quietly. I'd be happy to live on my own in the middle of nowhere. I'm a person that feels pain. I'm a person that gets angry. A lot more than I should. I sit up at night and regret how I treat people.
Lately, I've been stepping out of these walls I love so much. I've been letting the imperfect Tyler show through. I haven't been as scared to show who I really am. I haven't been holding it all in.
I always believed these walls kept me sane. I believed they let me be the person I should be. I regret that. I missed so much of my senior year, just because I was hiding in myself and hiding in the misery of going to a different school than the one I planned on. I didn't give anything a chance just because I was so stubborn.
The next line of the song is, "But sometimes I feel like these walls drive me crazy." I agree with everything but the first two words. These walls drive me crazy. They keep me in a preset schedule, where every day, I do the same things, keeping the same routines.
I'll leave you with a question and a thank you.
Do you have walls?
Thanks,
Tyler.