Oct 7
Masks
You have your masks, you wear them everyday. Masks cover your walls, you take them down to cover you, so you can be who you need to be. Happy masks, funny masks, masks to cover the sad and the suicide. Masks to cover the empty and the lonely. The masks are heavy, they make you tired. You hate that you need them, or maybe you hate everything they hide. Maybe it’s both, you’re too frayed to know. So many masks you can’t think straight, so many masks you don’t want to wear.
So many Goddamn fucking masks, killing you without killing you.
5 comments
5 Comments so far
This post applies to me/us in a lot of ways. More literally than metaphorically though.
Beautifully written Mike. …love the play on words with Frayed.
I have very few masks that I only have to wear when there I need to get something from someone and my real self won’t get the job done.
This seems like the start of a longer piece. The most interesting part to me is the part about the masks being on the walls at first – you can kind of see that … it’d be cool if you expanded it and described the visual look of the masks.
You probably know the Paul Dunbar poem about masks. Worth reading … the mask that involves the expectations of cheerfulness is the biggest pain!
Ah but you could also look at the masks as a kindness. Everyone really knows in their hearts how everyone else is feeling — even if they don’t consciously acknowledge it to others or themselves. And if we were all going around dumping our feelings on everyone through the incredible inadequacy of words what a mess this world would be. All we need to do is really look and listen — the masks are see-through veils.