I pull it around me like a blanket made of stone. It's rough hematite scraping against my chest.

I'm holding it close to comfort me.

It's streaking red anger in bleeding emotions Pride promised to stop.

Feelings seep from a crevasse of loneliness but my Pride goes before me.

It's a bridge that leads me no where.

It covers the soft parts I left exposed as I stretched in hopeful longing.

In transparency, we grew cold when the sun we exposed was too bright, too weak.

I felt the burn once his heat was gone and the sting lingers long after night falls.

It covers the weakness and longing that sit around me in solitude.

It whispers the strong words we hide behind because the feelings were too new, too strong.

Pride tells me it was nothing and didn't matter.

Pride tells me it was a mess we stepped over and away from.

We're given a clean break in the world of the unknown.

Pride protected us from ourselves.

Pride tells me it's better to never know.

Pride prevented me from needing, loving and losing.

I wrap my Pride around me.

I pull it closer so you can't see I'm shivering in the cold of almost.