Beneath the Surface

We wear our faces like a second skin, smooth and practiced, tucked and pinned— the careful smile, the measured word, the laughter no one knows is blurred with something harder underneath.

We learn the art of seeming fine, of drawing borders, staying in line, while in the ribcage's private dark our wilder selves still leave their mark on walls no stranger gets to see.

The mother hides her restless dreams. The businessman's not what he seems— at night he writes in secret verse about a gentler universe than ledgers let him speak about.

The quiet neighbor tends her grief like roses, petal, thorn, and leaf, while waving from her tidy lawn, her mask of ordinary drawn so carefully across the ache.

We all have rooms we keep locked tight, where versions of ourselves take flight— the ones too raw, too real, too much for daylight's ordinary touch, for coffee breaks and small talk's dance.

But sometimes in an honest glance, a hesitation, half a chance, we catch a glimpse behind the veil: the hidden story, the untold tale, the truth that lives below the mask—

And recognize our own disguise reflected back in others' eyes.