Keefe POV:
What you see is a mask. A mask carefully woven with the threads of lies to create someone new. Those ice blue eyes looking at you happily belong to someone else, not me. The eyes under the mask see every tiny fault, not with the world, but with me. The smile on my face is fake. Each laugh, each grin, each single joyous moment is fake. No. That’s not true. I laugh genuinely sometimes. At myself. That little joke you heard about me feeling sad. It wasn’t a joke. It was the truth. But the tone, the needles of twisted reality, weave their ways endlessly into every word I say.
“How are you?”
“OK.” Ok is in broken. Of course, nobody pays attention to me to realise that I’m not ok, that I am broken. You’re all too caught up in my mask. If you’d look closer for just a minute, you would see the tears in my eyes clouding my vision. The corners of my mouth gripping onto their position to form a smile. They waver, falter, shake with the emotions boiling up inside me. I’m a volcano about to explode, spewing emotions and feelings out in every direction. I need someone to lighten the load. But I can’t open up. There is a lock on me that will never be unpicked, the key melting into the lava inside of me. That one door in the movies that can never be opened. Only that people aren’t trying to open it, to crack it open. Because of the mask. It hides the lock like an invisible cloak.
What do I want my mask to be like? A warrior? A God? A normal elf? A normal elf. That’s all I want to be. A normal elf who lives a normal life and has normal emotions that aren’t trying to take control of me. That aren’t trying to control every single step of my life.
For once, I want to be able to take off my mask and be who I am. But I’m scared. I don’t want anybody to judge me or to knock me down. Call me a coward all you want but it’s not like that. Not at all.
Now I have told you. I have… untied the ribbon attaching the mask to me. I have made a step in revealing myself. These words I write are my way of speaking. I’m shaking. My hands are not functioning. The ribbon is tightening, tightening, tightening. Each tug with each moment of regret. Breathe. Loosen them. Don’t feel regretful. Learn to be yourself. Learn to accept yourself.
Take off the mask.
But I can't. I've worn my mask for so long that I don't know who I am anymore. I have become someone who I am not. I am what people expect of me.
I am nobody.