Mask Maker Poem by Sophia White

I sit all day on my cool bench
And make many marvelous masks.
I take some of this, and some of that,
And form fabulous fairie faces.

I snip and sew, glue and paint,
And my characters come alive.
They dance and sing, and delight
The wide-eyed, watching world.

They laugh and clap, call my name
And I smile soft and sadly.
They do not know how I cry
At night, when the show is done.

How I wish I were my own self.
But how I cannot be,
For I make so many, many masks
I have lost myself in them.

I am a writer. I have my words.
I have a host of characters.
But so real are my characters
I have lost me.

So all I have left to give
The wide-eyed, watching world
Are shades and shadows of who I am
Because I have lost me.