Masked in Plain Sight

Persona,

the mind of the self, is perhaps

what is least seen

when we go to our daily bouts:

                   We hide our thoughts from all, on ladders perhaps a little too tall,

                     weebling and       wobbling and       toddering and      doddering,

             there are too few of words to make that describe these faces we take.

        These masks,     these faces,         these hearts,            these places,

          are all things     we contain       within us,      our own secret crazes. 

                   But we cannot, no we                 should not, no we ought not

                  express         our hearts                            to            outsiders.

                For if we do, our company                 of foreign states about us

      look down to laugh, and chortle, and to walk those lines of dangerous must.

                                                    But Hark!

                                           as poets of Romantic

                                               yore might say, 

                            we retain intimacy in our own special ways.

      If we cannot give our hearts to all, and remove the mask to all bared faces,

        then   we   wear   the mask in public until   we    reach   private   mazes.

                      Indeed, our most special thoughts and places.