I wear my mask almost every single day
It feels like I just can't get away.
I wear it to hide the real and true "me"
Hide me away so no one can see.
I wear a mask to hide the truth
I was hurt many times during my youth.
Trusting people who shouldn't be trusted
My innocent self was truly beyond busted.
The mental illness that resulted from that
Makes every day a day with combat.
I wear my mask to hide from others
My struggles that I seek to cover.
People with BPD struggle immensely
To seek and to hold their own true identity.
I count myself as one among them
A lifetime of masks I have been condemned.
It feels as though I am a ball
Up and down, forever I fall.
Not tethered to anything, flailing about,
A cycle I cycle, never to get out.
It affects my relations by ceasing to exist
Even though I try hard to persist.
My personality changes too often
Hanging with me deserves a precaution.
So I'll wear my mask, I'll don it again
To keep them from seeing me so insane.
The true "me" is hidden, back to pretend I go,
You know me too well, true "me" almost showed.
I wrote this as an assignment for my language arts class, and I thought it deserved a spot amongst my other poems. We had to reflect on Paul Dunbar's idea of masks, and I turned it into a poem to make it more fun for me.
