Shell Celebrations Poem by Raj Dronamraju

Finally I've attained a hard outer shell
Feelings completely protected in a deep bunker
Under thick skin, I won't hear a sound

Scornful words can still fly down with precision
But now they bounce off a surface of impenetrable material
That material once lived here, once spoke up, and in doing so put its neck on the chopping block and died
Becoming only so much filler for fearsome recreation

On the stone streets of antiquity
Parading through villages, rehashing history
Following new cold emotional pathways
He makes it clear he doesn't care

And having gotten away with his lack of reaction to continual provocation
He will celebrate granite indifference
Break acquaintances upon a rocky heart
Split them open and consume the contents