The Mask

I feel as if I am buried alive

Yet I smile, and respond
"Fine, thank you."
I have been appropriately conditioned
No one wants to hear the painful t r u t h.
An essential part of me, my limb
A constituent of my earthly being
Has been violently amputated.

Yet I laugh at the mediocre conversations
A verbal splash in a shallow puddle
Pretending to be a player of the words
That have no m e a n i n g.

My heart has been ripped from my bosom
No benevolence granted
No explanation -No apologies
Only cataclysmic p a i n
Only agony
No anesthesia remains, just the bitter pain.
Yet I wear the m a s k

Day to Day.
Pretending I fit in
But really I'm a foreigner here
They speak an alien language
I attempt to translate the words
Still, they mean nothing to me.
Sequestered in the mask


They hear not the music I dance to
Nor the words I speak
Nor the pain I echo
Nor the native language of my e y e s
They will never really know me,
It's only a mask.