Our lives are not tied up with bows.

Frames line the hallways where we try to keep the memories, we fear will escape us.

The curtains that blanket our windows hide our lives.

We sit and pretend we are normal.

We perfect the art of pretending by smiling when people walk through the doors.

Our home becomes their museum.

Our home is wrapped with their wallpaper perceptions.

Constantly peeking in closets

Around corners

To see where our perfection is torn and crippling.

Like the paint clinging to the corners of ceilings or the door frames that have met anger before.

But their compliments are perfume to us.

And we breathe in the idea that people admire us.

We find comfort in the fact that we can still be perceived as normal

despite what skeletons we may hide in our closets.