No Face: A New Mask

Weekly Diary Entry

One so self-aware it perpetually hides itself.

Perhaps some people are meant to be hidden forever, meant to put on a facade to survive existing. As painful as it is to admit, the truth is I never seem to be on the outside; the ever-present shame I feel, the itching of my envy, and the desire to share something with someone have all forced me into different caricatures of myself.

Though it seems my life of aggravating lightness and artificial sweetness is over, whatever this realization turned me into doesn’t run deep either. It just doesn’t.

And so I’m left to obsess over the troubling truth that my insides are meant to be kept hidden, only for me to know about, as eviscerating myself for the sake of this tangible authenticity has been leaving me cold too.

Oh, how not to become my own self-fulfilling prophecy?

This story is part of a collection of poems, short stories and introspective diary entries, called “Grimoire of a Weirdo”.