The Mask
There is a girl I know who is always smiling. No matter what adversity she faces she has a smile for you. Always eager to listen to your problems, she always seems to know the right advice to give. So she finds herself lost, staring into the distance on occasion… It is never for long. She soon snaps out of it, smile firmly back in place.
When she goes out to the club she is the life and soul. The one most likely to dance on a table or sing at a karaoke, she defines fun. So she drinks to excess and usually has to be carried to her homeward bound taxi… She is still everybody's favorite party guest. She just knows how to enjoy herself.
She has the perfect husband. Tall and handsome, it is obvious to all that he is madly in love with her. So she gets quiet when he is around… It never lasts for long. So he shouts at her in public sometimes… It just shows how passionate he is about her.
Everybody loves her. Nobody knows her.
If she were to let her guard down she would show you her bruises and tell you how tired she is all the time. How she just wants to go to sleep and never wake up. How the alarm clock is her greatest enemy heralding yet another day to be struggled through.
If she were to open a door in the wall she has so carefully built around her, she would tell you abut the ugly, stupid, worthless woman she sees in the mirror. How nothing she does will ever be good enough and how she never seems to finish anything.
If she were to just trust you enough, she would tell you the stories of her childhood; bereft of love but full of criticism, neglect and violence. She would tell you how she weeps for the child she was when she sees happy families on the television. How she listens, enthralled, at tales of loving Grandparents. She would admit that she had her own child so that she could give and receive unconditional love.
If she felt safe she would tell you why she slept her way around town. She would tell you that she was getting back at her father by flaunting what he didn't seem to care about. She would tell you how she felt love, attention and affection beneath the writhing of the many strangers she had turned to. She might describe how shame felt on those taxi rides home from soon forgotten flats and houses.
Once, a long time ago, she had told someone all about it. He had told her he loved her. He had professed to care. He had told her in a moment of tenderness that he wanted to know her inside and out. So she showed him her bruises and told him everything. He never called again.
If she could bring herself to open up, she would show you her bruises and tell you how the first word to enter her mind when she is on top of a building or cliff is "jump". How she just wants to walk and walk until she reaches the end of the Earth, all the while knowing that ultimately, she cannot escape herself.
Everybody loves her. Nobody knows her. Still. She is always smiling.