The Demon Dance

I wish my looks 

Weren’t so deceiving

My friend 

Recently admitted 

The reason he doesn’t check on me often 

Is because 

His mind is incapable of envisioning 

A pained me 

My smile 

Is the curve of sun-kissed rainbows 

After a storm 

My eyes 

The ocean always waving in hope 

Waving out evil 

In the darkness 

So how could it be? 

How could a frown 

Make its way the temples

Of a goddess? 

I am known 

To war with demons 

To dig my hands into the

Dirt of pain

I am known 

To worm my tongue 

Into the voice of the voiceless

When it comes to pain 

I won’t ask you about 

The weather and how are you? 

It’s me you’re talking to 

How is your heart? 

How does it feel 

To hold your breath 

In spaces 

where you don’t have the freedom

To be yourself? 

My mother taught me 

A bad habit 

She learned from her mother 

The women of my family 

Look good so they can conceal 

How they feel 

They believe no one 

Will ever know you’re starving 

If you look good 

And this habit worked 

For twenty-one years 

I was a professional 

At masking the tears  

But age twenty-two and twenty-four 

Felt like a show of dancing 

In the devil’s fire 

Age twenty-four no longer has the effort 

To keep up with hair-dos

Why bother? 

Concealing the pain

Only to have it make love 

To your death wishes 

And in twenty-one days

I will turn twenty-five - 

Now I know 

This version of me 

Has learned 

How not to play hide and seek 

With the devil 

It is success 

To live 

Amidst your demons 

To listen to them dance 

You into insanity 

It is success to live 

In the noise and keep your cool 

It is success 

To not take your life 

Even though you feel dead 

I wish my looks 

Weren’t so deceiving