i am a scholar of renown
and i want you to know
the cost of what i have known…

i have learned the art of telling a lie
so that even i think it’s true;
i know how to turn off all of the pain,
as simple as flipping a switch
merely at the cost of every emotion,
merely at the cost of quietly being insane
shutting it all away for another day
to the point that i cannot recall
if i am masking all the feelings
or if the feelings that come are masks;
i have come to know so many things
but i cannot seem to figure out
how to unlearn it all