mask become skin
I don't know who
I am underneath,
all that matters
is what they see
and all they'll
ever know is a
falsehood.

There is a stage that no one sees,
built from open arms and steady smiles
The audience, the world, they notice not
The Great Performer amongst them.

He hides his puppet behind curtains,
the curtains made of little things
like silence, shame, a flinch, a tug of sleeve
its screams drowned out by applause

When the mask slips and someone looks,
when light finds what the fabric hides,
the performer straightens, bows, and keeps the act;
a gentle smile—an apology

I see young old skin
Fearing to feel
Paint wearing thin
Truth in a ring-pull

Deliberate distraction does what it must to retract us from us
But none of this has stuck

The privileged pretend, the poor attend
And stringed ones will strive for their view of amends

So shoot off their judge wig as fast as they send it
Use humour to poke, laugh like a blanket

Lie between the meadow and the edge
And wink at clowns with the mask of death...

Grief is a strange thing.
It can have many masks and be many faces.
It can be anger.
It can be hate.
It can be laughter
And it can be an overwhelming sadness.
Grief is a stranger.
It is the man in an alleyway dressed in black.
It can watch you.
It can grab you.
And it can even make you one of its own.
It is in times of Grief we must fight.
We must crawl and claw our way out.
Because Grief can make us a stranger,
Even to ourselves.

Gather around me, point and laugh,
Watch me dance with a broken half.
How easy pain can be disguised—
Just hide your face, then mask the mask.

Come and try to comprehend
How a broken leg pretends
To find footing amidst torment,
Beneath the stares of a thousand eyes

Everyone has a broken half—
Half hearts, half brains, half short-stretched hands.
Try as you may to refuse and defend
Your half pride and half lies and their
Sickening stench.

Never thought a man could confess,
Or even have the courage to explain himself,
How bad and awful can be dismay,
Or even realize his closing end.

Instead, we stumble around and shout—
To forget it all, we shout loud and proud.
And if we still hear whispers of reason,
Our throats are ready to smother it out.

I know this seems like contradiction
But I wish I wasn’t just my fiction
I wish they’d closely read my pages
And see through my false scenes and stages

I wish they’d squint and try to see
The text that’s true, that’s real, that’s me
Instead they glance just once, so quick
Not reading pages stacking thick

I made this front, it’s me to blame
I hid my truth in fear of shame
I feel regret as people glance
Towards my false curated stance

The narrative that they all read
Is someone else, not true, not me,
My want for love drove me to burn
All that I was so love was earned

I crafted quickly my own fiction
Showed off my hollow, fake depiction
I forged and locked my gilded cage
The “pretty” hides the rotting page

If someone picked me up right now
And saw past all lies I allow
I don’t think they could even read
The mottled text as truly me

Words shifted from their origin
The lies, the stains that I poured in
Blur with the truth, no one can tell
Not friends, not loves, not my own self

I changed so much to fit their wants
That I can’t read my own **** fonts
I killed my truth, now none will see
The faded, burned, authentic me

They ask, “How are you?” I say, “Good,”
as if one syllable could
undo the unravel,
as if calm were a place I could travel
just by saying so.

As if good meant whole.
Not hollow. Not holding. Not holes
in a voice note from days ago,
when goodnight meant don’t go,
and goodbye meant I already have.

See, “good” hides in the corners:
in tired good mornings sent across borders
where time zones tangle like limbs once did—
I say good,
but I never meant for this.

Good grief is grief in a Sunday suit.
A tidy way to name the mess.
A eulogy wearing perfume.
A fire dressed up like a candle.

We stretch it over pain
like bedsheets that don’t quite reach the edge.
We say it for comfort. We say it instead
of I’m lonely, or I’m losing,
or I’m learning to lie to myself gently.

There’s good in goodbye,
but only when you don’t look back.
There’s good in goodnight,
but only if you’re sleeping side by side.
There’s good in being good,
but only if no one asks too much.

So no—
I’m not good. I’m practiced.
I’m polished.
I’m passable at pretending.
But ask me again,
and I’ll still say it.
Because it’s easier than explaining
what "good" could never mean.