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Started by @DancingWithMyDemons business
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@DancingWithMyDemons business

Masks

You laugh and play like the joyful little ankle-biter you are. Were. What you do now is a mask. Nothing more than a sheet of plastic and fake emotions so that you might please the people that silenced your laughter. That held you from playing. That quenched the joy you had so that you would fit as a background character in their story

“Chin up.” “Smile noice.” “Stop that.”

And you let them. You took the mask with open grabby limbs, convinced that they knew best. you wore that mask with pride, knowing that you are what they wanted. That you fit into the mold they made. But it didn’t last long. It never does. Your mask cracked and they saw who you were and in the fear of rejection you hid. You made better masks and stronger walls.
Adding layer and layer so that you would protect your ankle-biter, not realizing that you’re smothering and suffocating it and killing it.
Your absolute need for humanity to accept you for who you are has completely changed who that is. And yet you continue making masks, carefully arranging each of the mussels to project the perfect picture of who you think you need to be.

“You should definitely get that dress.” “Smile pretty for the camera man dear.” “Remember your manners. You are civilized, are you not?”

Two three four masks at a time. Just to please and meet everyone’s individual expectations and visions of who you need to be.

Five, six, thirteen, you are drowning in the plastic, the comments and corrections.

“Sit still.” “That’s enough.” “Silent and bonita.” “That, darling, is who you are.”

There is no light at the end. At least not for someone as fake as you are. You don’t deserve the light that’ll show you the way to go. The way back to that ankle-biter. The one hidden behind towers upon towers of masks. Barrels and buckets and crates filled to the brim with fake smiles, un-joyous laughter and flaw correcting creams and powders. Just so you can hide the scars they forced upon who you were.

‘You look bonita today.’ “Love the makeup!” “I like this shirt better than yesterdays”

But that’s not who you are now. Not even you know who you are now. Too many orbit parties of hiding and covering and making those masks has numbed you to a point of being completely unrecognizable. You’re perfectly rehearsed smiles and replies sound so real they must be. Right? Then why don’t you feel it. Why is there a numbness coming from behind the comments you make. Where did that laughter and joy and playing go that you had freely felt without having to moderate the amount that you showed. What happened to the ankle-biter? What happened when you made that first mask that felt so incorrectly right. What happens if you can’t go back, if the mask gets stuck and you can’t remove it. What happens if that ankle-biter dies and you become who you are now. The perfect fit as an extra in your own life. Sure it feels like that it the answer. But you will never escape the numbness that way. You will never be free to feel and be who you are if you continue. And yet you do.
You do because you can’t live without being excepted. Without the comfort of knowing you won’t stand alone. You may be standing in the back and off to the side, but you have the support you need. or are you just another face in a crowd. There is no point in you being just another pretty smile. No reason not to be the one right up front and in the line light. So take it off. Take off the mask. That one and the one underneath until you reach past the wall and feel the ankle-biter behind. That same ankle-biter who was once willing to run and play and giggle, but has since forgotten even the meanings of those wods from the time spent in the dark. The dark you forced upon it. Buts it’s ok. When there is light the dark will leave. Scars can heal. You can grow to feel, and jump and play and laugh in the peace that freedom from those masks will give you. You will learn to love. Truly love. Just start with a ankle-biter who already loves you back. No matter what it’s been through. No matter what you put it through. You can finally consume oxygen to produce carbon dioxide without the mask. Freely inhaling without the taint of plastic to tarnish the air. All you have to do if remove the plastic. All you have to do is take off the mask.

@Elder-God-Jacks347

I have no poetry to share but I do have a couple of lines I've written that I find particularly poetic so we're going with it

"God have mercy on her inner ghost, she’d face him and walk backward into heck if it meant the devil she sold herself to every time she walked in here would be waiting for her."

"You can lose everything that makes you mine but I will still love you all the same"

"The dead do not live in the sunsets or government spy drones or any of the sights or sounds of humanity. They are the stars, bonita in theory but damned to be the eternal audience to a world they cannot help. Loved by the many but only accessible to the few. Do not feel sorry for those who have passed for they cannot hear your cries."

@William

I feel like the purest manifestation of joy in this life
Is to stand on an empty 36 lane highway
Swallowed in its vastness
As it is swallowed by something endless et cetera more vast
Because isn’t the point of life
Isn’t the entire purpose of living
To be completely overgrown by nature?
Urban exists so that trees will someday wreck it
And weeds will crack it
And water will ravage it
It was built by us, but not for us
It is so pretty overgrown in green

And a line I haven't worked into anything yet, but I will eventually maybe

I get to be me and who I am is not free of consequence but he is free of guilt