I build it quietly,
stone by careful stone,
a hollow beneath my ribs
where no one asks for explanations,
where the air tastes like the parts of me
I cannot give away.
Mask after mask slides on,
a ritual of polishing my skin
so the world sees only reflections
of what it expects.
With each layer, I sink deeper,
the pit yawned beneath the smile,
a sanctuary shaped from shadows.
Inside, the silence is mine.
I pace the walls of my own making,
learning their cracks and corners,
the echo of my voice against the earth.
Sometimes hands reach down,
offering warmth, light, company.
I hesitate at the edge.
To let them in is to risk
the soil collapsing,
to risk showing the raw, unmasked chambers
that tremble beneath the surface.
It is terrifying, this gravity of intimacy,
this fear that my pit, my refuge,
might not survive their gaze.
Yet even as I hide,
I feel the tug of wanting—
a longing for a bridge
between the pit and the world above,
a rope tied to the true shapes of me,
not the polished masks, not the rehearsed smiles.
Here, I am small,
and yet I am everything.
The pit keeps me, cradles me,
holds my unspoken thoughts
like treasure in its dark, cool walls.
I crawl into it,
and I remember
that sanctuary can be a prison,
that hiding can be safety,
and that letting someone enter
is the sharpest courage I will ever know.
