All my admittedly young life,

I was told 'Honey keep your cards close 'ta your chest now,

No one can ever hurt someone they don't know,'

This web of lies wrapped in a shawl of truth shielded me,

like a cloak of invisibility-guarded in shadows,

No one to see my true smile, hear my innermost thoughts;

feel my deepest sorrows...thus this was my fate;

a lonely and often time depressing one yes but it was Mine!

My burden like heavy armor protecting me from life's' destructive fingers,

I was Houdini and life itself was my captive audience,

a never ending cycle of shows 'til closing night where deaths curtains'

shall close, embracing me for my final act.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will Always hurt me,

is a term intimately familiar,

laughing in the face of the slurs though crying silently in their wake,

there is no reprieve for the damned they tell you, but if this is true

why do you feel deaths subtle whispers behind your pysch of pain,

calling you to join an internal peaceful rest-maybe just maybe there is

rest for the wicked.

Nethertheless, you keep your brittle smile, force a tired drum to

thump-thump-thump, fighting steadily and wearily against an army of hate,

Nobody sees You, or hears You-they don't see behind the smoke and mirrors;

the illusion carefully crafted through years of refined technique,

'What you see is what you get' they say, an excuse not to look beyond;

beyond face value, beyond stereotypes and bias;

You continue your act for some time,

each time a different location, different audience,same act;

more or less-until one day you meet Her;

taunted and brutalised known only as freak, it, scum-

it matters not that many depend upon her kindness, truly care,

nurture, and love her; for she is forever defined by the mask forced upon her,

that life has bestowed upon her-

it matters not that she is a mother,a lover a humanitarian;

for all she sees as she looks upon herself,

are the same unforgiving marks branded to her soul with the strongest

of adhesives, a mark that will follow her- haunting her wherever she may rest;

whetherhome and in bed, or six feet deep in Earth's loving surface to be reborn in ash-

Here Lies Freak-

a legacy afforded to a lifetime of hiding;

It is a slow realization then,like most are;

but it hits with the force of a bullet;striking away

all preconceived notions you once had on life,

on Your performance-who are You really is a question that plagues you,

a nightmare even morpheus’s gentlest touch couldn’t cure,

You decide it is time, Time to stop bending to the whims

of a ghostly audience and false praise; Time to be You...

Is this The New Me you ask..

No-

No honey, this is just Me

The Me that's been here all along

the Me you were to Afraid to see beyond the cloak of mystique

Applause-

A face revealed,

A Curtain Falls.