Category: Poetry
Subject: The Inner Self vs. the Performed Self
๐๐ฐ๐ต ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฎ๐ข๐ด๐ฌ๐ด, ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ต ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ด๐ฐ๐ถ๐ญ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ถ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฎ
I sit in the hush of shadows,
surrounded by faces that never belonged to me.
They stare back with painted expressions,
their empty eyes gleaming
as if daring me to choose again.
The mask of anger lies closest—
its mouth curled sharp,
its jaw forever clenched.
I wore it in moments when my voice shook,
but I could not afford to tremble.
It taught me how to burn in silence,
how to wield fire so no one saw
the ashes in my chest.
Beside it rests the mask of envy,
green and restless,
always watching what was never mine.
When I pressed it to my skin,
I learned how to smile at another’s joy
while secretly fracturing inside.
It hollowed me,
turning my heart into a cavern
echoing with someone else’s laughter.
The mask of sorrow is cracked,
its painted tears long dried.
This one clung the tightest—
it knew the shape of my bones,
it sank into the rhythm of my breathing.
Through it,
I drowned without water,
I mourned things I had never lost,
until grief itself became a second heartbeat.
And then,
the mask of disappointment,
its eyes downcast,
its lips pressed thin like a swallowed truth.
I wore it when the world
handed me promises that dissolved like mist.
It kept me quiet,
taught me how to fold my hopes
into paper birds too fragile to fly.
Each mask was survival,
each mask a shield—
yet each one also a thief.
Piece by piece they took my reflection,
until I could no longer tell
if the face beneath them
was still mine.
I have smiled through splintered lips,
wept through hollow eyes,
pretended to be whole
while something inside unraveled quietly,
like thread pulled loose in the dark.
But tonight—
in this chamber of faces,
a thin light trembles through the cracks.
It is not blind,
it does not demand.
It only brushes against me
like the gentlest hand,
reminding me that I still exist
beyond the painted lies.
And maybe,
beneath the fury, the envy, the grief,
beneath the weight of every borrowed mouth,
there is a softer truth,
fragile but breathing—
a self I have not yet forgotten.
Not loud, not dazzling,
but tender—
a whisper rising from the quiet,
telling me I have never been
only the masks.
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