Staring into the abundant abyss of a theatre mask
How will I be?
To look outside myself
become something I was never to be
repeating the lines over and over
reproducing them until they are mine
a merging of a soul that doesn’t exist with my own
until all my senses are staged
my voice becomes like that of a puppet
a vessel held by string
emptied of all I am
becoming the art
losing the difference between myself and a character’s part
The eyes through which I stare
the drama beckons in seductive play
to let myself go all the way
become the aesthetic at the heart of the scene
but there’s still part of me
that when I let go I get let down
when the curtain falls or the amphitheater falls to silence
I am left to repeat the lines again
wondering if the art is really who I am
or if I’m forgetting that I am something or somebody else
Am I the mask or do I wear it?
Is this where I belong?
Did I get caught in the tendril song of beautiful words?
When the lights dim and I am in bed
am I the lines that I’ve repeated in my head
or the one that pursued them with pied piper’s caught fervor?
A neutral face hides smirks, smiles, and laughs
something trained or perhaps always there
moving between them so often that I do not know whether they are learned or born-in
I’m chasing the soul of something
but I’ve not stopped to understand what it is
what I may be
Now I must face consummation with reality
I cannot run to feel free
because I do not know what it means to be
The tears and the rehearsals have led me to this place
where Act III has shut in my face
where am I without the lights of the stage
the sensation of ascending emotional heights
Do I scream in the silence
or embrace that this chapter has kept me hidden
must I discover who I am when the mask has cracked
My bags are packed
I am leaving without knowing whether to be that
or to look at me
Aaah!
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