Masked

He has been betrayed— yet not angry. Backstabbed— still not angry. Pushed to the edge, yet still standing. Lied to, yet still breathing. He has been wrongly accused, bullied, yelled at, beaten— and still not broken. It is not because he suffered less than others. It is not because he learned to live with pain. He stands, smiles, and carries on, because he has been disappointed, broken, and bullied too often. There is no choice left but to smile, to give the world the mask it wants to see. He spends the day aimless, then wakes at night to find the world asleep. Beneath the blanket of the sky, he looks back and realizes another fine day has been wasted. What is the state in which a man feels so much grief yet cannot cry to release it— even for a moment? Is it a curse? Or a strange kind of blessing— when a man can no longer cry?