#905 On Losing the Role to Find the Self

I grieve the self that hid behind the part —
the careful voice, the grace rehearsed and sure,
the borrowed manner passed itself for art,
the mask so worn I took it for my core.
But shame runs deep beneath the gilded show;
the Void has whispered what I would not hear —
that all this competence conceals the woe
of wounds I dressed in praise year after year.
So let the coming months unmake the frame,
let unbecoming be the work I do;
perhaps I built my roles to dodge my shame,
and called that refuge something that was true.
For what the role withheld, the loss restores —
the self was never built for gilded floors.