The Power of the Mask

 

Your broken heart is glowing 

on a pedestal for all to judge and rattle. 

When all you want to do is find 

a dark corner and hide your bitter thoughts 

away. But that light is ever chasing and

those pedestals reach out to grab you. 

You are trapped.

You slink away and keep your head down 

below the the ground floor, the lurking and 

creeping bring new sets of suspicion onto you. They 

watch you, they follow you, they wait to understand and 

absorb you. No broken heart is left alone and 

for some that's all they crave. 

Your insides turn to mush with surrender on the tip 

of your tongue. In spite, you twist and turn to break free of this 

curse for the happy damning the rest. You'd rather stand in 

the black, lost in the wind then be ridiculed for 

following uncertain truths. 

Pay up to replace those tear stained cheeks and 

sagging lips. Instead, cover yourself with a 

mask of happy thoughts and cheery souls. 

The price for deceit is of personal 

importance for some it results in tragedy, 

for you it quenches your thirst. 

You can run among the hidden ranks and 

soar among the level minded. You join in the joy 

with a damper on your chest, that sounds more 

like a child's first race across the ocean. 

Your the glow of the party, where the 

fun never ends and you always hold on 

for one last rush of fresh air behind a mask, 

that keeps holding you together.

But sulking alone, you hear the 

howling of the pedestal you can't shake,

memories flood back of the terror before and 

that mask that held you together just hours before is now 

threatening to never release. It follows your nightmares and 

squeezes every ounce of the joy and misery out. 

That mask has made you into the clown and 

breaking free is the same punishment as 

letting go.