Facades are great

Until they start

To fade

Away

 

Promise not to laugh,

Once you see,

What's been gnawing at me

 

No rhyme nor reason,

Conformity engulfs me.

Struggling against petty annoyances,

But the mask remains plastered

 

Soft

Pitter, pitter, patter

The mouse sneaks by,

Unnoticed

Until the cheese is gone.

 

No one expects the studious mouse

No one believes her greater dreams

No one wonders what really lies beneath.

 

Unlike the fairy tales ,

She isn't blind

Though fear of disdain raining

Flooding, suffocating , inundating

Prevents her outward reach.

 

Yearning, dreaming, earning

Chances for fulfillment.

Almost  there.

Just one bold move

that's all it would take

 

But breaking the bonds of tradition

requires more strength than this mouse has got

 

So for now she stays

Hidden in her regular hole.

Deliberating, waiting to soar, to flaunt

Her excellence and daunt.

Her only restraint: fear of falling solo.