The Smiling Mask

Photo by Lon Casler Bixby

I wear a smiling mask

Covering the darkness of depression

The mask presents me, not how I am

But how others perceive me to be

They don’t look past the plastic façade

They don’t want to see what lies within

The depth of that darkness

Loss of self

The stark emptiness

Sadness, sorrow

Pain

And death

The smiling mask fades and cracks

The elastic band frays and snaps

The mask crumbles away

Freeing me