The Curtain's Cost
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/mask-in-theater-explained-77455 The Curtain's Cost I am utterly exhausted by this relentless play, The heavy curtain of performance drawn too long. I cannot hold the hollow smile another day, To mask the deep, the aching emptiness that's wrong. The burden of a self that isn't mine to wear, To fit the mold you fashioned, cruel and tight, An agonizing stretch away from who I care To be—my own identity, eclipsed by your light. You see a project, a design that must be met, But tell me, why must the authentic me be cast aside? I am finished fabricating reasons I have set, For every thought and every reaction I can't hide. I've justified my nature to a vacant crowd, To people who, I now accept, simply don't care. The painful truth: my hope was spoken out loud, A unilateral effort lost on thin, cold air. I poured my heart to mend what broke between, But found no shared commitment, no reciprocal tide, A solitary s...