Can I take this mask off now?

It smells like mold, like a forgotten fish tank

Probably from all of the long trapped tears

Can I take this mask off now?

I cannot see through the eye slits

I only hear the laughs, which I have never learned to ignore

Can I take this mask off now?

It hurts as the edges dig in deep

Permanent scars are forming from the wounds

Hello? Is anyone listening?

I am trapped behind an unmoving mask that I did not choose to don

As I grow older, it does not grow with me

It stays the same, a reminder of the past I have tried forget

The oddity, the wallflower, the sad outcast that was ignored yet taunted

I

  want

            it

              to

                  go

              away

But it cannot, will not

Because while I did not choose to put on the mask, I am the one who keeps it there

The chasm that once was filled with my confidence now holds the glue that keeps my disguise in place

Please let me show my own face, I am ready to be me

Make the masquerade end

No, you are not ready yet

Why would you want to go back to the endless taunting?

No one wants to see the real you