Masks

Have you ever been so good at pretending you were afraid you might forget how to be real?
A good friend once told me a story he imagined in his mind, a story depicting himself, nothing more than a man wearing a mask, hoping to hide what was inside… I would like to dedicate the following to him:
A girl stood there, surrounded by faces; emotionless faces…
She looked down, closed her eyes and took a deep breath then reached back and tied the small strings holding the mask on her face. She opened her eyes and looked around waiting for someone to notice her. She hid, shadowed and disguised, but still wished to be noticed… by anyone, by everyone, but nobody looked. She looked at people walking by her, waiting for a glance or smile, but no one looked. She smiled and twirled around and landed gracefully and looked around to see if someone saw. The faces just continued to walk past her. Walking over to a bench she sat down and buried her face in her hands, tearing off her mask. Asking herself why no one would look at her, she made the mask perfectly, it was exactly what people should want to see. She rubbed her eyes and looked up, throwing her mask to the ground. There she saw a young man staring at her, a mask covering his face. She stared back and smiled as she stood up and walked up to him and reached up and untied his mask and grabbed it in her hands and slowly pulled it off of his face. “Don’t hide… If you need to be fake for the whole world see you, then take off your mask, and I will notice you.”