And One Mask Said To The Other... Poem by Shame Provoked secrecy

A stale, crinkled mask etches its thinly veiled smile onto her face,
A twisted gurn mirages itself onto her porcelain skin, cracking the ugly old stone grimace that lives underneath.

'How are you? ' asks the mask with a bubbly hop, skip and bloody jump
'Oh I am so happy for you’ happy, happy, happy!
She can't really look at his eyes; she does the trick she learnt at school- just look at the top of the nose and no one will ever know.

Her insides squelch and squirm, great brass cogs turning in her mind trying to keep her face-painting from running down her cheeks and ruining her pretty little picture.
Her fingers constantly diving to her palms and out again - No Hostility must be displayed-
She knows where her stumpy little useless fingers want to go, the lines they want to trace, the prickling heat they feel so proud of.

Her mask is still there, no sign of a slippage but the sounds of him are drowned out by the screaming of her blood as it suffocates her thoughts, but stimulates her soul - GET HIM she is screaming, how dare you wear your mask with such pride, I know, I KNOW about it, about your venomous, blood curdling sense of self superiority. I know about your hidden terrors, the secrets you love to nurse, And the mask that I know is there.

She wants to rip, savage, claw the truth out of him, publicly expose his scaly interior and pick his fleshy lies out from between her teeth.

Her mask smiles, agrees to meet up for coffee sometime and leads her away from the scene of the crimes she has only committed in her mind.