A short poem on keeping your problems inside

You can't tell what someone's going through from what's visible on the outside. Take it from me.

This is the skin that I've never fit in. Small. Tight. Uncomfortable. But all too familiar. It's good at keeping things in.

Everyday I'm trapped in war. But there's no running from the war inside your skin. The draft is mandatory, and the penalty for refusing is fatal. You're on the front line, looking for distractions as you flee from bombs launched with deadly accuracy. People look at me, but they don't see the beautiful smoke of war seeping through the cracks in my skin. They don't count the casualties they can't see. Every scar a memory. Every tear a moment lost.