Hiding oneself is easy, if you care to stop
and reflect on the nature of visages,
those displays of untruth that we send out
to the masses, showing off that which we
wish to have believed despite our reality.

To me, masking is a necessity, a stage
of existence learnt through constant failure
when ingratiating to any of societies
multi layered marketing schemes, the hidden
meanings behind the obvious words.

Being not myself in order for myself to be
in, presenting a picture drawn in the hopes
that I got the colouring correct and the
dimensions right to allow me to speak and
sit with other folk for just a moment.

Will I ever be free of such a thing? Four
decades on and I pick it from my bedside
cabinet, slipping it on each morning before
any of my clothes, feeling the urge to burst
free of my daily confines.

I know who I may be without it, but the
ropes that suspend and bind me keep me
safe are too much comfort, and when I fall
to where shall I land? What awaits in
my own pulsating abyss?

This mask of mine, this face of normalcy
that even now stretches thin and releases
gasps of the diverse, has been so effective
that even I question my reality, is it
even a mask?

Am I an impostor amongst those afflicted?
This question spins and flicks out at me, as
I perform the menial of which we are all
expected, and perhaps in this sky full of
people I am without wings.