We've shaken hands with you before

Shame

It's what keeps our eyes from meeting.
From lifting the hand forcing my head through the ground.
Like a weight tied around my neck that I can never build myself up enough to take you off.
My presence intervening with yours, casts a curse on my heart.

Shame tears my insides out...but makes the outside look better...and better...as it gets worse...and worse
It doesn't want to be solicited...so that a helping hand walking by would be able to assist in this internal revenge.

If this thing becomes known...if any light reflects off of the blackened heart it created...all is lost.
It wants to be deceiving...to make things all look ok...on the outside.
That's it's way of telling passers by, "it's ok, i look happy...so don't worry about me."

Shame digs deep to the core of our being, and makes us do the unthinkable...
Makes rational decisions seem the most irrational.
Makes that euphoria of living seem so much more like a fire creeping closer to the end of the wick.

But what shame isn't aware of is this.
While it's eating us apart, tearing our limbs to pieces while it feasts in pure joy;
is that we're parasites. We're going to leech the existence out of you.
We're going to take something wretched..and turn it into a sunny day.

Because shame...you and me actually get a long quite well. You're the metronome to my music; the pages to my book.
Every waking second that you think you're killing me...you make me realize. I can do better.
Without you I would feel complete. I wouldn't feel the need to get rid of you. Or the need to try that much harder.
Because you want me to give up.

The thing you don't know about me is..I'm playing you every step of the way.
The pieced up footprints that you are leaving behind..I'm fixing as you trot on your high horse.
Teaching me to learn from your mistakes, so I'll tread slower.

It's because of this...and solely of this, that I can always tell myself..i can do more.
The reason why i sort pros and cons.
Shame. your making me into a better person. by showing me the mistakes I've made.
Whilst you force me to ponder upon them. snickering with your friend grief, thinking you've got me.

I'll humor you, and not let this feeling go, but that's just one more day i try that much harder.

So shame, between me and you...who is really pulling the strings.