The Mask Slips

Hidden fears, unseen...unspoken. Concealed beneath masks...

🟥 Red for rage barely contained

🟦 Blue for sorrow that never sleeps

🟨 Gold for the illusion of joy

🟩 Green for envy masked as calm

🟪 Purple for truths too regal to reveal

Shadows linger beneath the mask

gloating with contradiction...

Porcelain lies...sculpted grin,

Mask wears light concealing borrowed skin.

Borrowed time.

underneath - silence grows -

A thousand shadows twist and pose.

Mimics joy, echoes pain,

They dance in mirrors, once soft and vain.

Each smile a veil, each glance a gate,

Truth and fiction congregate.

The mask protects, the mask deceives,

Hides the ghost that never leaves.

Yet in the dark, with no one near,

Shadows whisper what I fear...

The mask losing all its shades and hues...

becoming a colorless thing

🎭 Mask speaks of silence, shield, sanctuary.

They see it and think they know you.

*

Face breathes beneath the mask

wears grief like decoration.

You smile - it lies - I breathe.

*

Mask lies beautifully.

Once worn by queens and kings

Hiding bones which sang with pain.

It danced on faces of poets and painters

Those aching with pain and sorrow -

whose hearts were burdened, close to death.

*

Face

And yet they endured.

Frida painted through agony.

Mandela dreamed behind bars.

Rumi spun through longing.

Their masks cracked - but they did not shatter.

Mask

You are not broken.

You are tempered.

Steel hearts do not rust - they reflect.

Let me bear your burden a little longer.

*

Face

No.

Let them see the welds.

Let them hear the echo in my chest.

I will wear you not to hide,

but to honor the shadows I’ve survived.

*

Mask (softly):

Then let us walk together.

Not disguised -

but as truths, no longer wishing to be masked.

The face shifts - subtle, brow furrowed, softened gaze, a sorrowful downturn, and finally...a quiet smile. A layer of illusion revealed...

Letting truth emerge through the painted veneer.

I learn to accept that which I cannot change. Finding the wisdom to know the difference.