Mask

I wrote this poem, "Mask" on October 26, 2016.

~Mask~

By: Paige Taylor

All I want to do is be free. Free from what? I do not know.

From my demons?

From my scars?

Or perhaps maybe free from myself?

All I know is that I am living in hell

And I am hereby volunteering to stay.

When I open my eyes, all that I seem to recognize is grief.

In times of great despair, my soul longs to draw you near.

But my heart is just too far gone, far beyond repair

And hope is just a mere illusion.

Every night I dream,

But all of my final thoughts seem to end in agony and in suffering; it is a vicious cycle to be sure.

So why do I sigh in relief whenever I close my eyes?

I lure myself into a trembling sense of anxiety;

Filled with soft voices and night terrors,

Self-destructive tendencies have just always seemed to enlighten me.

It is like fighting for breath, and yet,

Not allowing yourself the option of breathing.

Thinking, ‘maybe if I bleed, it will give me all the answers that I would ever need.’

And so I decided,

That I would reach for a razor,

Instead of reaching for hope.

Pain had soon become pleasure

And pleasure had become the only reasonable way to cope.

I degraded myself to that of a lesser being;

After all, I thought that this was the girl that everyone else was seeing.

In that sense, could you still say that “seeing is believing”?

All that you are able to see, is what I allow for you to see.

With the understanding that it may, or may not be, real.

Still now, as the Musick continues to waver in my trembling hands,

My darkest memories will forever linger.

The notes will moan, and the melody will suddenly come to a screeching stop.

Instead of applause,

There will be nothing but silence.

In essence,

I had desperately tried so hard to make them all understand;

That when words cut like knives, people suffer.

~~~

Even in times of desperate Manic,

In which I seemed to be the most lucidly hysterical,

I was perfectly content in allowing my mind to wander;

To a place so dark and so sad, it’d seem a miracle

Alas! I gone mad.

While being left alone,

I sometimes cringed at the seams of my own laughter.

My miraculous mind,

An antagonizing Master-

Deprived me of life

And dare I say death-

Was my last encounter

Of one final breath.

Taking on the most of what is unbearable,

Seems to be just mere human nature.

Inducing ourselves through pain and trauma,

We can allow ourselves to continue our saga.

For if we never endure hardships,

Then living would mean nothing

And to live without a purpose, is the same as being dead.

We must bask in the glory in what it means to love or to be loved,

Knowing that we will never truly understand the difference.

When hearts are spared,

We are bound to ignorance.

When minds wander, our thoughts seem to collide;

Leaving us still in an endless bliss.