What If You Saw? Poem by Emily Mylastname

My life it’s like a masquerade
Looking at the mask
I appear…
…happy
…confident
…worthy
But what they don’t see
Is what I hide behind the mask
I am…
…sad
…self-conscious
…lost
But the people I have met
They don’t know
About the mask
They think the mask is me
When the mask is on my guard is up
I don’t show how I’m feeling
Or I risk showing my true self
I don’t love
Or I might not be loved back
The mask shows
A girl who’s got it all together
But behind the façade is
A girl who’s falling apart
But you never see me
Because I won’t take the mask off
I can’t
Or I might just fall apart

(November 29,2006)