A little touch up here and there
makeup to improve on natural looks
just some insurance that I appear acceptable
to make myself more appealing to the world

I gain friends because of this counterfeit beauty,
and the need I feel to cover up
my imperfections expands.
with more onlookers to critique me
I create a wall, a barrier of “ideal”
to look better, to protect myself from their snide remarks

What started as small changes
soon grows more and more elaborate,
my face completely covered by a mask
of appearing okay
like circus performers’,
a mask worn to please a crowd,
not for the wearer’s benefit.

My self uncertainty causes me to avoid
my true friends, who,
like mirrors,
show what I have become.

They show me how, in my rush to make myself “pretty”,
to gain people I call “friends”
has pushed my real allies away
throwing aside all thought of character
and how,
when I see through their eyes,
through glasses of reality,
I look at myself.
A clear picture, not blurred by my misshapen view.
I don’t recognize who I see.

Each layer of makeup I’ve put on,
that covers up my life, my personality,
to make myself more likeable
has turned me into a doll, always smiling,
a thing, without emotion or free will,
doing whatever anyone wants,
only to be tossed aside when I lose their attention.

This is not the real me.
I am horrified by this image,
of the monster I have willingly become.
I start to remove layer upon layer of my artificial self,
searching,
looking for a sign that I’m still there somewhere,
inside the fortress concealing my insecurities,
that had thrust me into solitary confinement,
I was too fearful of rejection to reveal to anyone who I really am,
pushing away the very people whose attention
I tried so hard to gain in the process.

I slowly creep out of my stronghold of falsity
blinking in the bright rays of reality
after so long in the sympathizing darkness.
It makes me vulnerable.

I come out of my familiar corner of fraudulent safety,
to find people who love me,
the real me,
welcoming me and all of my flaws,
showing me all of the genuine happiness I can gain,
with a few people to trust with the knowledge
of my life, my true self,
than I ever did in my claustrophobic shell,
surrounded by “friends”
who never bothered to try to understand who I was,
maybe- all of who they thought I was, ended up to be-
fake.