I choose my mask —
a polished smile,
quiet eyes
looking past everyone in the room,
the yes before anyone asks —
afraid my own skin
would not be enough.
I brush past others,
strangers’ shoulders meeting in a crowd —
brief pressure,
then the quick pull away
I have learned to expect.
Then something gives —
a breath held too long
that slipped beneath the surface —
a hairline fracture
running through the glass
I had been calling a window.
I see the broken pieces at my feet:
a painted smile,
a child’s open hands,
the dream I set down,
the grief folded small enough to carry unnoticed,
and a face I do not yet know —
calm, unhurried,
waiting.
I kneel among the fragments.
Nothing asks to be hidden.
Something moves around me now,
a hand that does not pull away.
And there,
without the polished smile,
without the borrowed face,
I stand —
not flawless,
not finished,
only honest.
It is enough.
