Poem: Truth Unmasked

Paul Lawrence Dunbar once wrote, “We wear the mask that grins and lies. It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes”…


We all wear the mask, e’erybody and e’eryone,
For fear of scars revealed and secrets undone.
For scared we are to face the world apart,
Thus the façade we don, that, alas, cannot mask the heart.
Paint and plaster are our tools of trade,
A mask for e’ery character played.
These masks we wear, they hide us well,
Though ‘neath the surface is each to his own Hell.
Eyes dried open, smile frozen in place
Portraying our significantly artificial grace.
Tearstained cheeks neither found nor seen,
Shadowed eyes hidden ‘neath a glist’ning screen.
Afraid we are the porcelain will crack,
Afraid ‘twill expose all that we lack.
It is worn in vain attempt to deceive
By putting forth what we each wish to believe.
It shows the images the world wants to see
Instead of the Hell tormenting me.
Like a china doll so fragile and frail,
We handle our masks as they weave their deceptive tale.
Should the mask break then the lie is undone
And our intimacies are exposed to everyone.
The mask is worn only in fear-
Fear of someone glimpsing that single tear.
Do not let them see, don’t let them look,
Lest you be read like an open book!
It’s porcelain and paint, all glitter and gold,
Speaks of a battle within beyond times old.
The mask, the mask with a permanent smile
Delivering charming forgeries and earnest guile.
Worn that a question none may deign e’er ask,
Truth only that we wear the mask.

Poem: Break Away From Me

Staring into the mirror, trying to understand what I see,
Looking through these eyes, I see they don't belong to me.
Left to myself, defeated and alone,
This fear of the dark never outgrown.

I see what I see-but what I see is not me.
I am me but I don't know me-or what I should be.
In the dark of night I shudder at my own being,
And these scars I hide from all eyes seeing.

Broken and confused, the Answer must be found within,
The Answer to the Question, the Answer needed to win.
I must know the Answer lest all my hope perish,
All my Love die, and lose all that I cherish.

The Answer is neither near nor far; it's everywhere.
But to find it I cannot stay hidden here, I must venture out there.
One day, through eyes that belong to me I will finally see,
But to see through my eyes I must learn to break away from me.

Poem: Inked In Bood

Life laid out, published in my blood

Trickling down the page, off the cover, out my veins like a flood.

Read my life through my scars,

From birth to death to heaven or hell,

When I dream or bleed, when I get lost in the stars,

Visions, nightmares covered in my blood when from grace I fell

And shattered my body on the rocks upon the shore.

Follow my steps not by the yellow-brick-road but my drops of blood on the floor.

See through mine eyes the reflection in the mirror-mirror on the wall-

The reflection that bleeds the tears I cry

When I feel my heart die, when I long to take wing and fly, when the blood-tears fall.

Trace the map engraved in these arms held out for all the world to see-ne'er to hide.

Let not the blood fade from the page from age to age.

Let all who wish come see my journey through the stars written in my scars.

Avert not thine eyes to the skies nor mute the sighs, moans and cries.

Rise and see how my heart flies as the ink-blood dries,

Chronicling this life's tries and highs.

Read how it suffered from the lies and tried to connect severed ties.

Red the sunrise, the color of my dreams,

Scrawled on my arms you can hear the screams

Of a child-lost, broken inside.

Follow the scar trail and see the nights he cried

Himself to sleep, afraid of the dark and the voices he heard.

Read the script that crisscrosses, understand word for word.

Hear my voice, read my scars, swim the flood.

Travel my path, read my story-inked in blood.