It is scary
What a smile can hide
A wide toothy grin
Can mask the despondency inside.

A walking travesty
Is what I am.
Beneath my red, rosy lips
Is an unfeeling, opaque gem.

I walk straight on a path
But I am so numb
Unfeeling, austere, self-abnegating
Those words are to what I sum.

But you look at me,
And you don’t see my indifference.
And why would you?
I conceal it all with my quiet sense.

I want someone to see
I desire someone to shout
Force me to turn inside out
And reveal all my malfeasance and doubt.

But I travel among the quiet
The placid, the wonted, the tame
It doesn’t occur to me, not at all
That we might be quite the same

See, your scars, they are cut deep
In fields of thorns, just like mine
With new eyes I see around me
We’ve all been cut down in time.

You are like me, and like you I am
I hide behind my smile,
And maybe, just reveal a bit
My true self, once in a while.