I wear a mask that isn’t mine,  
a stranger’s face, a borrowed line.  
I twist, I bend, I shrink, I grow,  
trying to be someone you’d want to know.  

Each day I lose a piece, it seems,  
of the person I was in half-lit dreams.  
I bury doubts, I swallow pain,  
to fit the shape you might sustain.  

I’d give up parts I thought were true,  
erase the edges, start anew,  
if it meant I’d be enough somehow—  
worthy of the love you’d allow.  

But mirrors show a hollowed soul,  
a heart half-full, a splintered whole.  
I’m not myself, but who am I,  
if loving you means I must lie?  

So here I stand, changed and frayed,  
scared of the self I’ve thrown away.  
And though it aches to disappear,  
for love, I’d be anyone but here.