First off, I don’t wear makeup.

No mineral foundation, no BB cream, not even a little mascara.

So there is no layer of stone between my face and the world

No smear of milky color across my nose and forehead

No soot weighing down my eyelashes until my eyes rust closed.

So my selfies,

taken with a dumb phone that cannot polish my irises or pigment my lips,

have no physical filters

My mask is intangible

made up of unsaid words

piled up around my thoughts like a haphazard barricade

that I dare not let out

 

My head steams as my thoughts boil between my ears

If my mouth were to open, out would splash fire and so

I clench my jaw and lock my teeth together

My words are strained in an ivory sieve

The dregs unfit for speech remain, bitter, on my tongue.

Thus I carefully pour my ideas into my listeners

Warning them: Hot, handle with care.

Some are burned, of course. Some always are.

But not all. These are the ones who matter.

 

Am I then a barista waiting on the world?

Mixing up conversation to order

A different phrasing for each customer

Winking for tips as I serve up what they want to hear?

 

Without my facade, yes, I do want the last cookie.

I think you’re an uninteresting idiot.

I will use all the hot water in my shower.

I think gay marriage should be legalized

doctors should be able to prescribe cannabis

alcohol should be available at all ages

euthanasia should be legal

DUIs should redact licenses--

these opinions have never been voiced.

The world does not see this girl.

And if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it

Does it really exist?

 

Yes. I may thread my ideas through society’s loom

Ducking over and under the immoveable Ps and Qs

But the colors of my threads are all my own

The pattern is one I have chosen.

Without the structure of the warp threads,

My cloth would be a mass of knotted fibres

Tangled beyond help, repelling all who would approach

 

One day I will lift my voice

strong with passion

and fight for these causes.

When that time comes, I will be:

articulate

prepared for rebuttal

poised

socially acceptable

knowledgeable

 

with filters.