Pretending

Pretending
eats out your heart
and, like a thief,
steals away
all your truth;
Pretending
loses who you are;
makes unworthy
all of your past.
It is a perversion
of your seed,
which mutates
into some other thing,
not knowing
where to reach
for food, water and light.

After a while
I would not remember
who it was
I was pretending to be,
just some pretended soul
with a hollow place
where my heart use to be.
-Joy S. Barefoot