Deep down, beneath years
of dress-up clothes and masks
applied with careful precision –
a little girl hides,
cowering from fears
she avoids at all costs –
molten tears running
like the River Styx
on a journey from
nowhere to no place,
an ever flowing stream
flooding the unconscious
steadily filling a reservoir
long dormant – creeping
like a furtive stranger
imperceptively to the very edge –
and suddenly, it seems,
the surface cracks . . .
a shining facsimile
of healthy serenity
dissolves into a muling,
whining creature none
care to see – caught
face to face with an alien
being behind clothes familiar,
they cautiously smile,
a futile gesture of sympathy
and turn away,
embarrassed by the deception,
bewildered by the lie,
not understanding that the face
was only a mask –
an illusion recognized.