Downplay| Jordan Clarkson & Quincy Brown

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downplay- to make something seem less important than it is

It's a mechanism really, a defense , no one ever really bares their soul or heart, I know I've never.

Eventually you get to the point where your heart becomes numb , it beats low and sometimes you forget it's there, wonder what's keeping you alive or just move day to day skulking through nothingness , the void you've created.

Your precious escape from feeling, the fortress you built around your heart, your heartstrings sharp and mocking like barbed wire.

You always wanted to be strong, tough, so you learned and you became this, this monster, you were created as a part of a vicious cycle of coldness, non-feeling. You downplay just like your mother, grandmother, father, siblings , your entire circle.

You cope but you don't heal and sometimes you question what may be real.

You downplay yourself , love, until you can't , until warmth spreads through your chest , roses bloom red in the grey cement which your heart became . Who knew from the concrete a flower would grow?

Your foot hovers over it, metaphorically, your essence tries to grasp the root, dig it up, refuse to be injected by emotion . However it is met with thorn, bold unyielding thorn and you watch it bloom, feel it's beauty radiate from inside.

For the first time in a long time, you're alive , living, not merely existing.