The Mask That Hides the Hurt

The Mask That Hides the Hurt

She paints her face in daylight tones and grace,

a practiced smile perfected over years,

no crack allowed to show the faulted ground,

where silence gathers weight and feeds her fears.

She moves through rooms with steady measured steps,

praised for her calm, her strength, her quiet poise,

every kind word tightens the disguise,

pain hiding well beneath polite white noise.

No one can see the tremor in her chest,

the way her breath forgets how to be free,

how laughter is a skill she learned too well,

how joy became a role, not honesty.

At night the mask grows heavy on her skin,

when mirrors stop pretending she is whole,

the heart speaks out in fragments and in scars,

in truths she never learned to say out loud.

She wonders when her truth became a lie,

when hiding felt like breathing, safe, and smart,

when loving others cost her every piece,

until she misplaced the sound of her own heart.

No one is cruel, they simply do not see,

how neatly broken women learn to stand,

how strength becomes the final line of defence,

the last thing left she still can command.

If someone paused beyond her careful smile,

and listened past the story neatly told,

they might hear echoes breaking through the seams,

of grief exhausted from pretending whole.

Until that day she walks her quiet road,

admired, unseen, carrying the cost,

a woman held together by her mask,

protecting what the world already lost.