Unmasking

For years I wore the smile that wasn't mine,

Painted on with trembling hands each morning,

A porcelain shield against the world's design

To see the cracks, the bruises, and the warning.

The laughter mask came next, hollow and bright,

Covering wounds that never learned to heal,

While underneath, I disappeared from sight,

Forgetting what it meant to truly feel.

I wore the mask of "everything's okay,"

The one that nodded when they asked if fine,

The mask that learned to shrink and look away,

To make myself small, never cross the line.

But masks, they say, are heavy things to bear,

And mine had grown too tight around my face,

The glue of fear that held them cracking there,

As truth began to claim its rightful space.

The first mask fell like autumn's dying leaf—

The smile that never reached my hollow eyes.

And in its wake came flooding, raw relief,

The kind that comes when we stop telling lies.

One by one they tumbled to the ground,

These faces I had worn to stay alive,

And in their place, my voice began to sound

Like something real, something that could thrive.

Now here I stand, unmasked and strangely new,

My scars like constellations on my skin,

Still learning who I am when I am true,

Still learning how to let the light back in.

The mirror shows a stranger, yet I know

This face is mine—unmarked by their control.

And though the journey's long, I'm learning how

To love the person underneath it all.