Masks

She put on a mask just in time for Halloween, wearing it around all night as she passed by friends, acquaintances, strangers.

At the end of the night, when everyone else took off their costumes and washed off all their makeup, her mask didn’t fade away.

“Hey, why aren’t you dressed up at all?” her friends had asked her at the party.

I am, she insisted in the silence of her own head, feeling mildly hurt by the fact that her friends hadn’t taken note of any changes within her. I’m a new person now.

She was wearing a mask, even if no one but herself had the ability to see it.

She had decided that she no longer was satisfied with simply being her boring old self.

The mask covered her true self, making her feel and making her appear like somebody different.

Someone who wasn’t...

Her.

This change made her feel like the person who she had always wanted,

Always wished she could be.

Maybe no one around her could see it, but she knew it was there.

She could feel the mask, cold and hard,

Molded onto her face,

Pressed tightly against her skin,

Suffocating her,

Forcing her into the pressures and expectations of the people around her,

Sucking the life out of her.

Sucking out all of her likes, her dislikes.

Eliminating her personality completely.

Eliminating absolutely everything about her that made her who she was.

This want for change had been brought about

As she had slowly lost her own happiness,

Day after day,

Filled with repetition, boredom, and insecurity.

And she finally realized that she just...

Didn’t have the strength to be comfortable in her own skin anymore.

She wanted new skin.

She wanted a new face,

A new her.

And though nobody else could seem to see her transformation,

She knew that the girl she saw in the mirror now,

Was not the same girl she used to see staring back at her.

“I don’t know,” she replied to her friend. “I guess I just didn’t feel like dressing up this year.”