happiness is just a mask

In this land#3

I am a terrible liar,
no matter how thick
my masks are...

In this land
I feel out of place.

It's hard when
you're often misunderstood.
I just let it be
succumbing to my faults,
to my insecurities,
to my doubts & fears...

I breathe-in the toxic air
and breathe-it-out...
No matter how much
you cleanse the air
that comes,
when you're
stained
it leaves a scar
that's hard to heal.
Then everything comes
to a choice,
damn or be damned.

I have been good
so far...
Letting the river
flows,
never got to swim back
or even fight 
the rushing currents.
Pretending to swim is 
easy. 

In the end,
life is  been
good,
despite happiness
is just a mask.

Author's Note

stream of thoughts.

Reviews

[Caradoc]

Well done, old friend. Very relatable, personally for me as well.

-Cara

[Weeping willow]

Wonderful flow of thoughts,touched by so many.The realness of the soul speaks out where the mind shuts down,good emotional feelings;-]

[Jeff]

I liked the flow of your thoughts. You kind of touched on several subjects and kept the emotional value intact.

[Carolynn]

This is a very powerful stream of thoughts indeed. Sounds like you are person who has been through a lot, and though you may appear happy it's just a mask you wear because the scars are so deep. When someone has seen too much of the "dark side" it gets really difficult to imagine what the light must look like. This tugs at the heart strings - I really hope true happiness finds you some day :)

[Daisie Vergara (Dhaye)]

I have read this morning (can't remember where and whose poem. Lol), that happiness should not be chased, but chosen. Wala lang....share ko lang. Wahaha!

Hope you are okay, bro. I know it is not easy to stay alone in a foreign land. I am praying you will be happy soon. I wish you realize that there is someone beside you there who can make you feel "not out-of-place". I know there is. Baka sobrang taas ng standard mo? Lol
Peace be with you!
Happy weekend, bro!

[Davidgeo]

"Letting the river
flows" make that flow...

How has that not been pointed out yet? That simple typo destroys one of the best parts of the entire poem... does these people reviewing just skim? Poetry is not meant to be skimmed. Disrespectful it is.

"In the end,
life is been
good,
despite happiness
is just a mask." ----- replace first 'is' with 'has' maybe the second 'is' with 'as'

Again, how am I the first to give you this feedback? Those reviewers are not doing you justice.

"pretending to swim is easy" -- I just plain don't agree with that.... it's harder. People are just afraid to actually try. Still, it's a pretty damn fine line.

It's good, very good.

[Glen Yumang Manese]

From the title to the reality that you paint for the reader...in this one...Pax...give one a sense in their own...of how things are and continue to be...

[John]

There may be some truth in Nietzsche's warning that to lie incessantly is to expire of exhaustation, but it could equally be argued that we die anyway, with or without our disembling. The poem, I think, interestingly tries to work through some attitudes towards lie in order to reach a conclusion about liife, also interestingly an optimistic one.

[DIVYA]

The world is a stage and we are all, and I stress on all, are playing our roles. All have on some kind of a mask. We are all concealing a part of ourselves from the world. I appreciate your feelings of isolation & melancholy, as I feel them too. Like sometimes we don't belong. Yet, the poem ends with a unique realization that life can be and often is good, despite the masks...oh yes, I agree, life is supremely beautiful, above and beyond the pretensions. Thanks for a very thought provoking writing.