If you could see me,
you’d run, screaming,
alarmed, terrfied.
Surely you’d cross yourself,
toss salt over your shoulder,
do anything to avoid the curse,
to distance yourself from me.
So I hide. I hide in food
like a child, covering his own face
and assuming invisibility.
I hide in people pleasing
to act as if I were finished, polished, real…
I hide in silence, knowing you can’t judge
words I don’t speak. I hide in ferocity
making myself unloveable so I can believe
I’ll never be loved. I hide in monotony,
not doing the things that would lighten my load.
I stand here in my mask, eager,
hoping you won’t jerk it away,
toss it beyond the moon.