Yin

Who are you after you have taken off
all of your masks? She asked. As a tear slipped
down my cheek in secret at the back of
class. I came surrounded by a thousand
smiles but they weren’t for me. I was at
the mercy of the chaos in my mind.
And so I couldn’t see the beauty that
is really there behind the limpid veil
of bitterness that crept across my heart.
‘Not that’ I said and took the mask away
but in its place I found a shadow and
the shadow left a mark. It was heavy
for a shadow I was burdened by its
weight. It spoke to me in whispers of the
things I couldn’t be, it lingered like a
stormcloud, the cloud was crying doubt. So I
shon a light upon it and I cast the
darkness out. Layer upon layer I
fought to tear away, each time there was
another that would rise into its place.
She said there would be stillness, she said I
was enough, she said it would be peaceful
when I took off all my masks. I saw my
Self as pages, as pages in a book,
on every page was written something till
the book was full. And then the book was open
It was open to the wind and with the next
exhaling breath a page began to lift
and as each page was taken skyward in
a graceful ark I felt a little lighter
and it wasn’t quite so dark. And then the
book was empty, it’s pages all set free
it’s covers laying open, for all the world
to see. And finally a moment, the
night had turned to day and there wasn’t
any layers left for me to take away.

Reviews

[lessa (kenzie)]

such an emotional deep read, sometimes things cut us to the core

[barleygirl]

This is an amazing thought journey. I had to read it twice to fully appreciate. The first half is an astute observation about wearing masks which cover up some dark lacking we feel about ourselves & how our self-loathing still raises its ugly head periodically, much as we strive for an attitude adjustment in the positive direction. The last one-third is a brilliant description of seeing our lives as being one fresh blank page after another. Very honest depiction of the typical human vacillation between being upbeat or letting the world get us down (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[Vertigo Cat1111]

Such a deep, hurt subject to touch on, but you did it so well. We all have some sort of mask and it's the hardest thing to take it off and love everything about ourselves, but you wrote this message in such a way that makes it easier to do that. If beauty like this poem exists, then we have beauty in ourselves, too. Thank you for sharing!

[jacob erin-cilberto]

If only we could take off all the masks we use to protect ourselves and still have faith that we are enough.
Doubt can be one of the worst things to deal with...Once the pages are set free...will anyone read them and understand the worth we actually did have?

[danielle.]

There’s all these things that we believe define us, if you strip them all away, the good the bad and the ugly, what is left and can you make peace with it?
I guess it’s a little existential.
I’m not sure if it really matters who, outside of ourselves, knows our worth if we know our own... which is easy to say... but not always easy to do!

[Julie McCarthy (juliesp..]

Oh wow
So glad I read this
It’s powerful

[danielle.]

Thank you Julie, I’m glad you did too!
And thank you for leaving a comment xx