Masked No More

I was excellent at hiding behind masks

for a long time,

or at least I thought I was.

*

They took many shapes and forms:

performance, over-achievement,

sexual conquest…

*

Those were only a few.

*

I put them on each morning

easily as wearing a hat,

putting on my spectacles,

*

slipping them on like

car keys or a billfold

in my pocket,

*

a watch on my wrist.

*

The process a part of my being,

never even noticing the weight

of what I was hiding.

*

Wearing a mask put a version of me

out into the world

that I wanted you to see,

*

and hid the reality I believed would scare you away.

*

Because who could love

a broken boy, or an

insecure man?

*

Who would love an unguided mind,

someone who did not really know

how to live in this world,

*

no matter what he claimed?

*

Better to keep the masks on,

even when the shame and fears

slipped through,

*

even as the iron pinched and warped

my view, my vision, my very

sense of Self.

*

Better to be masked and alone.

*

I got a jolt in October 2021,

another in December of that year,

a third in May of ’22.

*

Not so gentle reminders,

crunched metal and inconvenience,

mostly, but violent enough,

*

dangerous enough to get my attention.

*

So I began a different journey.

Putting myself in the hands of an Intelligence

higher and greater than my own,

*

using the page to dig through the debris,

sort out the real from the unreal,

with incense burning every morning

*

as I clear my mind and just listen.

*

I exchanged the masks

for a full beard and a ready smile,

grew my hair out at my mother’s suggestion.

*

I suffer more, I feel more,

I laugh more, I sing more,

more joy, more heartbreak, more love.

*

Because now, I am masked no more.