"Masks"

"Masks" 

Us in our current state....
...... too late.
Very little about us
is sufficient in this setting.
I tire from the unrelenting:
repenting after repeated trips
through the black water we've waded in.
Dark matter followed by nervous chatter
barely quelling a flame that shouldn't burn. 

So turn away from me.
Please.
I don't trust myself.
I need your help. 

Amnesia hoped for to no avail.
Desperate ambition so frail.
Pale the pigment of dashed will.
There was once thrill in hiding;
presiding over each other in conceal.
Skin worn this thin reveals
to the glancing what we shouldn't feel
so we drape ourselves in torn restraint.
The discomfort a necessary accessory.
Despondent accompaniment of the essential. 

Even as we've laid here bare,
my perdition is hanging over there. 

Recalling days when we treated fear
like foreplay before the blind.
The kind of mockery none are proud of.
Love harder to find with garments removed.
Proven true in how I still look at you.
Would deny myself before letting you see
these eyes so dry from evaporated lies
that I still cannot rinse clean. 

Inadequate that we be seen together.
Weather too perfect.
The birds have flown on for the evening.
No torrent for purposeful distortion.
A small portion of time granted
that should have been recanted
for the sake of those involved. 

We are what cannot be resolved.
We prod.
We poke.
I provoke.
You dishevel.
We choke.
and regret.
and repent.
and resent ourselves. 

They sit on shelves
like ornaments for celebratory means.
Still their disposition disposable
for one's dangerously wavering countenance.
Compliments collected in fashion
whilst working to save face.
I now grace this world with a shroud.
Once proud of what the sun illuminates,
I now await the darkness I wasn't fond of.
Found love and confused it.
Used it to an obscene degree. 

I can barely see and breathe
but this cloak you cannot read.
Restoration crushed like seeds
under feet tangled in weeds.
Preservation of our leads.
Blind before me yet you see

so I disguise to meet the need. 

Please understand.
I'm sorry.

Written By: Devin Joseph Metz