"this skin"

I hide from the others

not because I fear them

but because they haunt like fresh ghosts;

I have convinced them

that I do not need them

and I don’t,

but sometimes I wish

I could be more

alone,

sometimes I wish I wasn’t the most lonely

in a room full of people

with their eyes on me,

sometimes I wish I could rip off this skin

and pull out this mind

and put their stares and comments

and questions and invasion

to a stop

because their energy drains my own.