...

...It’s as if I’ve built up this wall to keep everyone out and to hide behind. For the sake of safety and security, long years of building a fortress around myself to keep everyone out.  
But I’ve trapped myself as well.
No one can get in, but I can’t get out, either.
I’ve been alone with myself for so long that I can't stand it, but so closed up that everything beyond that wall fills me with fear. I know that it is time- this wall needs to be torn down and done away with. So I begin wildly beating the walls and pulling down bricks.
My hands are bleeding raw and the process of breaking free...is excruciating.
 
I have to get out no matter what the cost.

And I cough, pulling bricks out as decade-old mortar crumbles over my dusty hands, throwing them away- all of these pieces that make up my prison. They lay in a pile behind me splashed with the blood from my frantic hands.

Finally I collapse- I need a break from attacking these bricks.
I lay in the dust and cough as it settles and swirls, coating my sweaty face. But then...when the chalky grey is done dancing in the air, I taste the sweetest oxygen seeping through the compromised wall.

I sit up.

There is a breeze blowing through, I can feel the outside and for the first time I don’t fear it, I’m eager for it- so eager.

That openness, wide and terrifying and shakingly huge- I want it so badly.

The honesty.

So once again wild with desperation, I continue the task in front of me- determined that there will not be a single brick left in its place. Looking forward to dancing in that openness, free of walls and masked insecurity.

I will be free.