I Didn't Choose This House by Yuuki Saitoh

My emotions are a glass house

One that glitters in the sun

Reflecting off the panes with which it’s tiled

Walls clear enough to showcase

Wonders that were beyond wild

Of course, I never questioned it as a child

It was merely a structure piled

Overtop of me

I didn’t choose this house, you see

It was given to me

Apparently, nobody wants to deal with a glass house

The transparency is troublesome

The oversensitivity, cumbersome

It breaks too easily to have any fun, and

It inconveniences everyone

“People will eventually leave you, one by one”

I know, but there’s nothing I could’ve done

I didn’t choose this house, you see

It was given to me

My emotions are often a broken glass house

Assaulted by the world around me and

Told that my wounds were not real

Too many broken shards leaving cuts and scars

That are impossible to conceal

I’m too numb to feel, but

People staring means I can’t let anything

Be revealed

“You’re a fool for not building your house out of steel”

I didn’t choose this house, you see

But it’s slowly killing me

Nobody showed me how to treat my glass house

But when somebody finally did

I learned that the qualities I hated could be

More positively reframed

Sensitivity and fragility were not design flaws but,

Features that should be tenderly maintained

Transparency is not something for which I can be blamed, when

Walls are paned with glass colored by

Blood, tears, and experience gained

What was once shamed can now be reclaimed

And while I did not choose this house, you see

I can own it in a way that better suits me

My emotions are now a glass home

One that glitters in the sun,

Quiets when it rains, and sparkles like a gemstone

Inviting in those who would care for the

Delicate panes that are now toned and have

Come into their own

Panes that are easily seen through because

There is nothing to hide when everything can be shown

This, of course, means

Everything to me as I’ve grown, as I’ve

Finally made this complicated structure my own

You see,

I didn’t choose this house

It was gifted to me.

Stained glass by Neile Cooper

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