alone again, here, I find myself,
grasping for a connection with a feeling which has departed,
found her way out again, back
back, back to the organic,
the scientific, the familiar,
the: "I mean, I'm not trying to be someone else just 'cause I wanna change something about myself....Well yes, of course you're right that it didn't bother me before they pointed it out, but they weren't wrong. I'd feel a lot better about myself if I changed it. *It's **for ***ME."

Okay, sweetie, as you wish.
You are free to scroll
down

down



down




all the way tthrough your catalogue of masks.
but, and this really is the important thing: you don't wear the mask FOR ME, you wear it for you.
you wear it to protect yourself.
you wear it to not feel judged.
I never judged you.

you wear it to prevent yourself from encountering the sort of discomfort you feel when you think you might look stupid.

you wear it to protect yourself, and the cost is your deception.

but you haven't deceived me.
you believed this to be the case, but, you see, I don't look at "you,"
that body,
those eyes,
that blue fluff which

exits stage right to meet the ear near the neck which gently rolls down, like a stream, then breaks inward
into the cascading waters,
always raging,
always violent,
having dug yourself a trench, surrounded yourself on either side by a limestone wall, built by a lifetime of struggle,
the best way you could find
to hug
yourself.

No no, my dear.
you haven't deceived me -- I've seen you all along.

you've decieved yourself.