The Mask

In the reflection of love's cruel duality, I stand questioning not only who you are but who I have become in your presence. Behind the mask you wear, I search for traces of the man I once knew, but the truth slips through my fingers like sand, leaving only emptiness where once there was a promise of warmth.

The cruelest irony lies here:

I feared the day we’d speak again,

If the universe dared weave such threads.

I feared you’d be a stranger,

A relic carved by time and distance,

And I would mourn, endlessly,

The you I once knew.

But when the moment came—

There you stood, vivid, alive,

Breathing words I longed to hear.

Yet they were venomous, laced with scorn.

Aren't you convinced still? He’s someone else now.

But another thought struck deeper:

You felt unchanged.

You felt like a mirror

Of the one I held so closely to my soul.

Yet, you swore with every breath,

I am not him. I am not that man.

And I—I knew I should concede.

For how could you be the one who vowed

You’d rather die before you let me get hurt?

Even as your cold words lashed me,

I glimpsed something beyond the ice—

A glimmer, a shadow,

The you I so desperately wanted to unearth.

But I didn't dare reach out and touch your face like I would.

I don't think you would've let me.

The terrifying mask was fixed now, unyielding, as you kept mocking me gleefully.

You have always been a man of dualities—

Hating me one moment, loving me the next.

Swearing to protect me,

Only to harm me the following day,

Doing the very thing you promised you never would.

You would take back the gifts you gave,

Take back your love,

As though it were something transient,

An ember you could snuff out on a whim.

And I know I may have hurt you at times,

But my love was always constant.

Like the flow of the rivers that never run dry.

I was only ever perplexed,

Because which one was truly you?

The man who wouldn’t hesitate to crush me,

Who could smile as I shattered beneath his heel,

Or the one who'd clutch me tightly like I'm his most precious possession,

As though I were the only living thing in his fractured world?

Loving you was like loving two men:

One who scornfully sought to tear me apart,

And one who gently longed to complete me.

Even now, I pray that the latter was real—

That the warmth I saw in fleeting moments

Was not a mirage,

And that the cold, cruel person you became

Was the illusion instead.

Perhaps you were right as you said the last time, the only time you said that—

Perhaps you never loved me.

And still, I’m haunted by this labyrinth,

This endless cycle of breaking.

Because your maze was the only home I knew,

It terrified me at times but it still felt like my own.

It was cold and unpredictable and harsh at times but still it was my home.

The fire would burn me once in a while but it also kept me warm.

Did you grow distant because I left?

Or have you forgotten—

I left because of the blow you dealt?

And I do not know if I should laugh or cry knowing

That I couldn't even be hurt at the things you said to me,

Because I wanted to scream the same exact things at you all this time.

Do you remember that June?

I’m sorry I was frail,

That I couldn’t stand beneath the weight of your hand.

The slap shattered something in me.

I couldn't believe you could do that.

I fled, wounded, aching,

Trying to stitch myself back together.

But you burned with anger,

As though I had been the one to wield the knife.

Why? I cannot understand it.

If you were wounded, I would cradle that pain.

But why do you weep after striking me?

Why do you cut, tear,

Rip my roots from the earth,

Only to scream as if I bled you dry?

I cannot unravel this.

If you were hurt, I could fathom it.

But why are you anguished after you drew the blade?

Why do you strike me,

Break me,

Drag me to the ground,

And then weep,

As though the blood on your hands weren't mine?

Why do you wail of your fractured heart

While trampling mine beneath your heel?

Is it that you cannot bear the burden of my suffering?

Or is it that, in some cruel recess of your soul,

You savored the torment you inflicted?

What was I to you? I still wonder,

For with everyone else, you are a stranger to no one—

A smooth surface, untouched by the weight of the past.

You speak to them with ease,

Dismiss their wounds with the flick of a hand,

Making peace as though time erases all.

But with me, there was no such grace.

You could never meet me with quiet understanding.

You never saw me as a person at all—

Only through the lens of your fiercest passions,

Either tearing me apart with scorn or tightly holding me close,

As if I were the only being in your world.

Now, as I stand amidst the wreckage,

The only question left to ask—

Is this truly you?

Or is this yet another mask?

Was the man I loved ever real?

Or have I loved a ghost,

A mirage crafted by my own longing?

Was this the face I once cherished,

Or have I loved a phantom all along?

And what has love taught me?

Not the warmth I once believed in,

But silence and restraint.

Just endless perseverance.

And from all this, what have I gleaned of love?

Only this, for my own sake and sanity:

To never again love so deeply,

To never again surrender my soul.

To never again lay bare my heart,

To never love anyone ever again unconditionally.

© 2024 Inaba Tarek