Beneath

Something I wrote one night while sitting in an airbnb room that smelled of weed and old furniture in Baltimore

There's a face that I wear,

A mask to hide what's truly there.

Another life, a distant past

A fleeting fantasy that cannot last.

I tossed her aside, put on this disguise,

A shield of deceit to conceal my cries.

Beneath it all, who am I but a lamb,

Life’s sacrifice, bound where I am.

A child once brimming with love and fear,

Fighting fiercely for all she held dear.

Childhood joys she had to forsake,

Rushed into womanhood, innocence at stake.

But sometimes this mask slips and falls;

From the darkness, that child crawls.

Unleashing chaos, setting worlds ablaze

Avenging the childhood the world erased.

Playful and reckless, she'll go too far,

A child whose soul is marred with scars.

Betrayed by those meant to shield and care,

Her memories a blur of pain and despair.

I wear this mask to keep her bound,

Locked in a cell without a sound.

She yearns for freedom, longs for the sun,

But freedom means damage that can't be undone.

Her innocence playful, yet dangerous too,

She never learned limits, what not to pursue.

So this mask remains, shielding the world from wounds anew,

Keeping her hidden, sparing me and you.

This heavy burden is mine alone to bear

A silent guardian, my mask of despair.

Reviews

[Broken.buddy]

This one cuts deeper than the Beast poem in some ways. Where that one was about embracing darkness, this is about protecting everyone from a wounded child who never learned boundaries. There's something heartbreaking about "playful and reckless, she'll go too far" - like innocence twisted into something potentially destructive.
The mask metaphor works so well here because it's not just hiding - it's actively protecting. Both the world and the yourself. That tension between wanting to let the child out ("she yearns for freedom, longs for the sun") and knowing the chaos that would follow feels genuinely painful.
What gets me is how you've captured that specific kind of childhood trauma - being "rushed into womanhood" and having to "forsake childhood joys." The child inside isn't evil, she's just... untrained. Dangerous in the way a wild animal might be dangerous - not malicious, but unpredictable and potentially devastating.

The whole thing feels deeply personal in a way that makes me wonder how much of yourself you put into these poems.