The Mask

You see what you want to see. This is me. You think
What you see is only a shell, a mask. You don't look beneath it, though I'm pretty sure you know that it's there. Maybe you're scared to. More likely, you like how it makes things so much simpler.
My illusion is your reality.
You take what you see and stick a label on it. Pack it up neatly to be displayed on store shelves. It's perfect, you say.
I'm fine, you believe. Or you tell yourself you believe.
I smile, so you think I'm happy. You never glance a little higher, to the tears in my eyes. I don't let them fall.
I guess some people would say it's my fault. I don't let you see. I'm the one who put this mask on in the first place. But then again, I've been wearing it for so long, I can't even remember who first put it over my face. It was probably me. Though maybe not.
Maybe it is my fault.
But even if I would slip this mask off, you wouldn't see. You'd tell yourself it was still on.
No point. Better to keep the mask on. Better not to say how I feel, how I'm being ripped apart inside, because all I'd get is pitying stares. You'd say I shouldn't be silly. Because to you, the mask is real, and anything beneath it is the illusion.
Better not to show you the knife in my heart. Cover it up. Though there's no point, really. You never look at my heart anyway.
You tell yourself the blood is just water.
If you must know, the one thing I want most is to cry. To feel hot tears roll down my cheeks.
But of course I can't. So I smile instead. I laugh. I'm happy, I shout to the world. Don't worry about me, I'm perfectly fine.
But I cry on the inside.
And the tears fall on my heart, adding salt to the gaping wounds.