Hidden Shell

She struggles every day.
The kind that doesn’t leave visible scars,
but that eats you alive quietly.
Only the closest one’s notice,
and even they don’t see it all.

She doesn’t want to,
yet she hides behind a wall,
an armor she believes protects her,
though it quietly keeps the good ones out.

She didn’t mean to become this.

But now the walls are high,
the armor fused to her skin.
It doesn’t come off anymore.
It doesn’t loosen.
It just stays.
Heavy, suffocating, necessary.

It keeps her alive.
It keeps her alone.

She used to be soft.
Loving in a way that made people feel safe,
giving in a way that cost her everything.
Now she second-guesses every instinct,
cuts her own words short,
watches every door like something’s coming through it.

She knows the flaw.
What if the thing protecting her
becomes her downfall?
What if her shield
keeps the love she longs for
just out of reach?
What if she’s hurting herself
more than he ever did?

It doesn’t take much
for someone to find the cracks in a person.
Just patience,
just the right kind of cruelty.

And she learned,
all too well,
that people don’t always break you all at once.
Sometimes they do it slowly,
so you don’t even realize you’re gone
until there’s nothing left to come back to.

She knows what this has made her.

Knows the wall is a cage.
Knows the armor is cutting into her
just as much as it ever protected her.
Knows the shield in her hands
is just another way to disappear.

But she can’t put it down.

Because what’s on the other side?
Hope?
Trust?

Or just another version of the same ending.

She doesn’t trust her own judgment anymore,
that’s the worst part.
Not the pain.
Not the memories.

The doubt.

The way she questions every feeling,
every person,
every moment of peace,
like it’s all just a setup
waiting to collapse.

She’s tired,
not the kind sleep fixes.
The kind that settles into your bones
and makes you wonder
if this is just what being alive feels like now.

So how does a warrior stop
when fighting is the only thing
that kept her from disappearing?

How does she tell the difference
between a hand reaching for her
and one that’s about to close around her throat?

How does she choose
to be vulnerable
when vulnerability is what almost destroyed her?

Or maybe the better question is –

what happens
when she never does?