Shell.

I am stone, they tell me. I am weather washed, beaten by harsh waters, eyes shut tight at the crash coming down. Flinching permanently, closed like a tomb, my soul shows no outside signs of life. No wisps of joy escape my sealed countenance, my eyes harden unintentionally. What I experience as fearful non-stepping on toes, they only know as my winter silence. I am ice carved, non-melting, living at the poles. Could I but carry a conversation I would surely melt and soak into the carpet, or find I am only crumbling river-slate, soft and nervous.