AES 36 : Ballerina in a music box

I disappeared for a while. Parts of me are still gone. Maybe they always will be. No one really noticed anyway. But I did. I still do. I miss myself; the me that did not back down from anything. A lot of years went by and I just watched, like there was always time. I was frozen in my self preservation, hiding in the corner, where I made myself invisible. If I could crack myself open, I would jump out of my own ruin, run away in pieces, and never come back. I mean that with my whole heart and every time I watched my own hands break it. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever stop using my own heart as a shield that pushes everyone else out of harms way. I throw myself in, despite the landing, hit a lot walls face first. Could I learn how to walk again without these egg shells? If I let the screams come out, would everyone pretend not to hear me? Turn the other way like they always do. Those uncomfortable moments make people go blind and deaf. Can you hear me now? Did I make myself so small, that I contributed to my own disappearance? I lost my voice somewhere along the way. Quiet rooms often lend themselves as a shelter from all that's loud. A safe place that holds a hand over my mouth to keep me here, but not really. I learned how to walk tightropes a long time ago. Ballerina in the music box, she dances when I open it, she stops when I close it. I always loved her. Tiny and unseen, there was a time when she had big dreams. Someone turned the lights off. One day I'm gonna let her out; watch the way she dances when no one tells her how to.