The Mask
When she turned five,
her mother told her
she should be seen
but not heard,
and gently covered her face
with a paper thin mask.
It grew on her like a second skin,
white and delicate,
until she hardly felt it anymore.
Now, day after day
she paints a face
on top of her face-
a polite mask
to hide the flaws
of bad skin
and thin lips,
but also other
broken things-
a cracked heart
polished into
a radiant smile-
those frightened eyes
disguised by blackbird wings.
Sometimes,
no matter how hard she tries
to keep her thoughts sewn up
tight inside her head,
a thread comes loose
and she unravels.
Then people whisper her name-
cluck cluck their concern.
Her latest boyfriend says
he can’t handle her neediness,
even though she only tells him
the good dreams, like the one
where pink roses and baby’s breath
grow out of her skull until
it splits open,
and behind her eyes
another pair of eyes
blinks and winks-
signaling someone else
still lives in there.
She wants to say,
behind these swollen red lips
I have child lips-
small and soft,
afraid to speak-
behind this murmur
of a voice,
I scream!
All day long
inside her head
she hears a mocking bird sing.
It mimics the sound
of a porcelain mask
shattering.
By Johanna Ely 2017
For The Shattering Exhibition