Outside the Walls

By Andrew R. Duckworth

He was a closed-in man
With a stoic face
In a closed-off place.
But that was outside the walls,
Not in the inner halls
Where the brain runs races
To interpret what he has heard,
To find the right words
So he doesn’t sound absurd.
Some would say he was square,
That he didn’t belong anywhere.
But he was honestly just as scared
As the next person living in
An uncertain world.