The Mask

Dark Piano

Mask

I wear a mask these days
These long, long days of apple green
And cherry red hues of violent fire
Flowing ever constant through my veins.

No one should see this
This me that lives inside my head
This soulstruck, angry being
Shoveling coal in an imaginary hell.

What is it about me
That terrifies myself as nothing else can
That wakes me in the deepest night
To lie awake working out unsolvable puzzles?

I love..I can love…I do love
I love with a persistence that denies dream
Denies fault, denies substance and begging
And clings to invisible strings dangling in the darkness.

Yet in the morning
I wear a mask and a cloak of hiding
Covering breaks in the mind
And tears in the seams of a ragged heart.

I do this for protection
Not for myself but for the world
That must not be exposed to the hurt
Hanging from my eyes and shadowing my footsteps.

I am a phantom
A ghost living among the living
Not participating in the life
But still remembering it’s taste.

Here and there, now and again
I meet another, like myself
Shrouded in mist and howling in silent pain
And we stand and stare as if in a mirror.

And oft as not, we do not speak
But nod in recognition and bow
To a fellow sufferer of these dark days
And endless, everlasting aching.

Once, I was young and beautiful
Vibrant with life and running over with love
Joyful as dawn and undaunted by the setting of the sun
And the world was my happy playground.

But now the midnight
Wraps me in it’s icy arms
Caresses my face with cold sleepless fingers
And kisses I do not want.

It tells me that here I belong
Here, abandoned by love and deserted by hope
I must dwell now always, hiding my ugliness
Behind this mask of the forsaken.

What a hellish, lonely thing life is!
Outwardly, I have not changed
I am still beautiful there, still young, still very much alive
It’s only on the inside that I am terrifying

It’s only on the inside, that it’s dark

All the time.

by Voo

Sept 22, 07

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