I have my Bob Dylan mask on.
Bob Dylan
Yeah everybody wear the mask but how long will it last.Fugees
masks under masks under masks under masks
until I myself don’t know where they end
or begin, for that matter
or which mask is doing the thinking about it
or if there’s anything underneath at all
or if that’s a problem
or if it just requires a different perspective
from, perhaps, a different mask
as they all, it seems, turn different ways
some are cool like Bogart
others sputtering like Don Knotts
and all of them looking different to others than they do to me
so they all tell me that I’m laid-back
even happy-go-lucky
once, long ago, a close friend for years said she couldn’t imagine me angry
more recently someone I didn’t know so personally said I was so up-beat he couldn’t imagine me depressed or unhappy about anything
though I suspect that wily old coot may have known more than he let on
seeing through the masks and telling me through his own up-beat and genial mask that he wasn’t buying it
but what if those masks are actually the deeper ones?
what if rage and depression are merely layers of onion skin,
waiting to be sloughed off?
