The Masquerade

As read on 40 Story Radio Tower, Episode 28.


In the shadows of the morning, Loretta puts on her masks, caring for her pale young skin.  She should age, but no, that's the time for reflection.  She can't handle seeing her knowledge.
She was a caring girl behind all of her tough behavior. Magnificent with beauty.  Some days she would try to understand why the men with wives would follow her. Why she frequently had to run home frightened late at night.   Her face would itch and swell with welts.  Yet everyday, the mask was fitted on so very tightly.  By her family, by her lover, by the people she thought cared.

Think about how sad it is for the masquerade to never be able to feel what it meant to be loved. It's a fight never won.
 Loretta became just as fake as her mask. Waxy, and with a head full of hair that wasn't her own.  Was it her heart beating, or just the water dripping into the eroded metal sink?  You couldn't even tell if she was breathing. Air so shallowly moving her belly, which was bloated from not eating for days.  She just forgot.

She used the masks to get what she wanted.  She used the masks to signify trust.  Masks for friendship.  Masks for lust.  They are all there.  Created in her likeness, but also out of sheer greed and narcissism.  If she didn't wear one, no one paid attention.  It became a daily crutch.
"Who am I?", Loretta asked the brightly lit silver bathroom mirror.  "Mirror, oh Mirror.... the falseness falls off every night as I bash my sobbing face off of these faded, half painted walls."
These masks, they are always in front of me, waiting for who I need to be today.
How did this happen?

Loretta stood in the street as the sun rose in the cloudy sky, threatening an annoying spritz.  "I renounce these addictions!" she wailed as the pavement under her feet grew cold.
Time for a new plan.  "I will be a story teller, just like them...pretending that my every surly heart cry is nothing but poetry hanging in my fine lace dress."  It is so splattered and stained, much like my face.  I've had to hide behind my false truth.  It seems like I'm covered in lies.  My fault for being so proud.
I'll figure out what it's like to be an Artist, or a Writer, maybe I'll be a Musician.  I hear they get a lot of attention....but only if you're good.  Maybe I can fake that too.  Oh shit!  Shit, I can't be false.  I can't be a fraud.
So how do you do this?

She spent the entire day in bed, contemplating a fresh look.  A new day.  Somewhere, something, someone that is real.  The times before the masks and the people who remembered her.  The real Loretta.  A beautiful mess full of warmth.  A compassionate soul who never meant any harm.  A thankful person who wanted to believe there is good in the world.  It was surely just a broken heart that made her run so cold.

You should see her now.  After she hid all of the masquerader's confessions, and the empty grumbles they spewed at her weary, porcelain cracks, her face had fallen down into nothing but that mask.  The one they had gazed so deeply on, sinking down into the shame.  The one they kissed and pretended it meant nothing, over, and over, and over again.  There became so many layers of masks just so she could look at them.  Finally she realized, "I thought they loved me, but it's as false as this face."  As she spoke, the mask she fixated on wilted, and gave away through her pallid, spindle fingers as she traced the floorboards in flaying swoop.

Today, the same town she has lived in for many years, doesn't recognize Loretta.  The masquerade never sends an invitation.  She doesn't have an appearance worth noting, or knowing....except for some.  The ones who greet her in the morning.  The ones that ask her how her day was.  The few, proud and true, who kiss her cheek and tell her how lovely it is to see the person she promised to be.  Loretta is loved by all the right people.

They are not the sun,
They are in the shadows
wearing a mask.
When they choose to know me,
be with all certainty
that I am not the one they can hide behind.
Not the one you can use and abuse,
or the one who agrees on your lies.
I am the brilliant light,
and a wrinkled face
because I have learned
what it's like to dance in the masquerade.

Sad Clown

Afternoons at the Bigtop.
Around town stupidity,
and stale old popcorn.
An old dancer balances
on a tired elephant.
I too
should be afraid of
imminent knowledge.

The sad clown doesn't wear a frown.
She can make you laugh.
She can make you smile.

Calming melodies drift late
one night
outside of the constant show.
She cried because it was lyrics
of truth muddled
in basic lessons
of all of these crowded streets
filled with people
who need to be entertained.

She remembers colored balloons
and performers
who brought an overcoming joy
even when the circus was cancelled.

Her heart reminds her
late at night
what isn't funny
anymore.

Pale, comical...
snarky, and offensive.
Sunshine burns her skin
just so she can feel
something else.
She is dim.
Rising the curtain
just so you can watch her
fall down.
Applaud.
Slap your knee.
Isn't this grief hilarious?

Your Menu

I simmer in truth
stirring in the silence
waving away the clouds of steam
swimming in high air.

In Hell's kitchen
the menu offered
a delicacy;
a one of a time special...

Stewing in my thoughts:
What do you have cooking
good looking?
It's a horrible dish
unless you sit across from me
eyes locked
asking to pass the salt
across the table.
Rub it in deep.
I felt only a season of you.
Maybe I'm too bland,
but there's a
pressure lumbering
as if there was an elephant
on my chest.
My ribs ache.

Where did you get this recipe
for disaster?
Bitter side glances.
Odiferous, drunken advances.
I've been boiling, turning, lifeless
in the middle
of a four course spread.
Tea for two...
clinging glasses of wine.
Everyone is here for blowout time,
but it's my head on the platter,
and your carving knives
take the first cut.

I hope you feel nourished.
I have been picked apart.
After there is nothing but a shell
of my body
I hope you have
at least
saved my heart.
It was yours anyway.

The Question

Who in consistent inquest
paces for orientation?
Succumbing to mauling query:
bother and pother.
Turpitude in a serpentine twist.
All of which
should be assigned
a sword that splits
a blade of grass.
In each side
an answer
that sensations trouble
the same.

Daily awaken with
the same questions.
Was I a thought today,
terrifying your mind?
Did my absence retrieve
a patient sleuth,
gumshoeing
the idea of our worst tyranny?

Situations,
at a glance...
Face to face:
the only time
all of my inquiry
becomes still.
I just wanted some answers.
Lean in and press.
I didn't learn anything.

What bothers me,
fidelity?
I can't tell you.
When our eyes met I forgot the damn question.

Before

Before.
What's in store,
as the door slightly creaks
and you
are continuing to peer through.
Anxious for the minutes
as the time came to pass.
I verbalize yesterday
but worry about tomorrow.

Lovely days of before,
chest clenched and sore
only by the ties of narration.
I tell about your virtue
in storytelling lore
although
I don't think my counterparts feel the same.

Conclusions about before
often a reflection you seemed to ignore
as I fight for a valid reason in this convocation of obscurity:
opinionated plebeian biased irregularity.
Friends who turned out to be enemies
sent out a draft
but I didn't go to war.

Instead
my heart just aches.
Some ghosts are actually alive.
These days, I lock and bolt the door.

I'll be Poe if you are Eleanor.
Haunting me
not in mustering flight
but with nightmares that I may not be able
to see you again.

Rest yourself
and be assured
I am as authentically real
as the last time you remembered.
Impermanence of life
pushes even the most stubborn....
One day this may not be a recollection
but for now
everyday I carry you with me
I love you just as much as I did before.

I'm Tired

I'm tired.
The slumber is thoughts of which become sleepy times,
wrestling in nestles of clear blue sky.

I've walked a lonesome trek,
and wind blown snow's beauty made me feel worse....
Because...
I'm tired.
It was just the day before when I thought he loved me and I pronounced the language that concluded an open door.
Today it's shut.

I'm tired.
Do you know my name?
Exhaustion meant that I can't introduce myself.
He knows all others,
but I slept in a daydream that replayed yesterday and
the introduction of my belief will tell you in a solemn lullaby.
Rock me to sleep.
You are so tired of playing...
its no longer fun.
Go to sleep,
your tears will have them on the run.
They are so well rested.
I lay awake.
I'm so tired.
He's my nightmare.

Battle

Pick axes and cleavers.
Barreled guns and torturous constraints.
Out to battle
for sovereign safety.
Behind an enemy line
to defend these escapes from lips
and thoughts
that time life
by the ungrateful death
of a tragedy.
I have been taken
as a prisoner of war.

They said I was part of a
meaningless battle.
That the peace
that should follow
is only drawn out of fate.
One from the other side
since cowards who combat
truth barely exist.
It was nothing short of treachery.
The way they separated my pride...
the heralded advance in my change of policy.
It's all over once I touch his face.
Have you missed me since I've left for war?

I escaped for a moment.
The sleep deprivation
had terrorized every second
after home again.
Post traumatic loving disorder....
I returned to shine my boots.
Confessed the disgrace.
Hang my medals on the wall.
Add up loses
and admit I couldn't withstand the fight.
So much for my tenderly apparent warfare.

A contention is simple apprehension.
Striking down the series
of treaties I wrote for justice.
Ceasefire.
You know you've won.
All is fair in love and war.