Digital collage by S. Auberle       ~"Masquerade"
multi-media, hand colored pastel & watercolor

MASQUERADE 

She believed long ago

that every one except her knew

something she didn’t…

Important people knew,

successful people knew,

nuns and priests,

in their stern pulpits knew…

how to go through this world

purely, with wisdom the girl felt

she would never possess.

It seemed to her that she was broken

or missing something and, somehow,

needed to be fixed.

The masks were available

as she grew, and like other women

in that time and place,

she chose several…good girl,

good wife, good mother.

They never quite fit.

She couldn’t see well in them,

but it didn’t matter--this way

no one would know her true self.

With her vision askew,

the woman didn’t realize

that other people wore masks—

crooked ones, shabby ones, 

masks that had fallen,

been trampled on the ground.

But this is no new story

and I wish I could tell you a happy ending…

I can’t.  Except that

even the finest masks wear out.

Feathers and jewels drop, one by one.

The edges tatter and tear, till

one day, the masquerade ends.

The woman sees her face,

naked, scarred, criss-crossed

with living.  She touches herself,

tenderly, to be sure….and finds herself

whole and beautiful.  

She was never  broken.