I see it.

I see it in everyone around me.

I see it in everything around me.

I see it in myself.

I see the cracks in the dinged up armor we wear, in the lack luster metal we cart on our backs despite the heavy pieces wearing us down, armor broken and useless from life's vicious attacks.

I see the hearts we wear on our sleeves beat weakly as we batter them every day with love we know isn't real and with heartache we keep in our palms just because we are afraid to let go of that pain, pain we know is tangible and real.

I see the pieces of ourselves we have sewn back on with needles of stubborn pride and thread made of our half hearted feelings that this is the best we will ever receive.

I see the memories we keep in the bags under our eyes, memories we use as weapons of self defense in the battle against our instinct to move forward and thrive; all we want is to live in the perfection of the past so we don't have to face the pain of never knowing our path.

I see the souls we have beaten with our unwillingness to keep going when life gives us all that it has, souls that are shriveled and confused because they are unable to flourish and bloom under the pressure of being the past form of you.

I see the pain and chaos inside the minds of the citizens of this cruel world because I have seen what the world can do to a person when all they want is to live as they think others would, too, and I have felt the knifes in my back from the brutal attack of a hateful fate.

I see the terror, the fear, nestled inside the whites of our eyes, fear that runs as red as blood and streaks the perfect circles of light because we refuse to look away. We refuse to look away from ourselves, refuse to look at reality because it's too much for us to go through, nonetheless see.

I don't see anyone embracing the pain and trial they have made it through. They hide away the cracks and dents, instead of fixing them with gold so the world can see how beautiful and capable we are.

I don't see people letting the flowers bloom in their hearts and in their wounds carved by adversity. They sew up every hole and chip in their skin instead of letting gardens grow to remind them of the struggles they won against the world and the ones within.

I don't see anyone packing up their sunken bags and throwing away their weapons of misery to replace them with the diamonds and pearls one finds after releasing all the tension and fire kept inside for so long.

I don't see souls being polished so they gleam with self worth and the success of finding how we blossom in the hard grounds of diversity.

I don't see people leaving their perfect moment in the past, leaving to find what beauty lies down an uncertain and winding path.

I don't see people around me, just battered shells of humanity longing to be free from their internal adversity.

I don't see anything around me through the throngs of lost souls wandering around without touching the ground for fear of feeling something real.

I don't even see myself anymore through the locked doors and shuttered windows of a house built to withstand a hundred hurricanes. But this house wasn't made to be scrutinized or seen from the inside, because solitude is the only way I know to never be hurt by the world.

I cannot unsee the horrors and atrocities thrown at me by fate and circumstance, but I can see that a better place lies before me if I just walk down an blind path towards my destiny and leave the past behind me, where it is supposed to be.

I can finally see what pain is supposed to be; it's a lesson on how to move past the perfection of a pre-disaster society and see myself as I want to be before the world sees me.