Mask by John R.C. Potter

Blue eyes so deep and so cold

looking like a glacial lake

telling me they never give

more than you can ever take.

 

Blond hair so golden and so bright

equated with the equatorial sun

speaking to me of how you turn

away from what you’ve always done.

 

Red lips so thin and so very dry

an elastic stretched much too far

showing me when I’m up too close

just who and what you really are.

 

You wear this mask of your own

yet you dare to call it a face.

Then smiling I see the real you

but it’s gone without a trace.

 

Is it so very easy to deceive and

to be steeped in such subterfuge?

Can a liar take shelter from the storm

to find a place of relief and refuge?

 

For whom do you churn out these lies?

You must know it was not done for me.

Your lies convince you and you alone.

I have vision whereas you merely see.

 

You find it comforting to fool yourself

so that you can walk on the wild side.

You have your mask and stories in place;

where you walk is where you also lied.

John R.C. Potter

John R.C. Potter

John R.C. Potter is an international educator and gay man from Canada, who lives in Istanbul. His poems and stories have been published in: The Memoirist, Fireworks, Plenitude, Fiction on the Web, The Globe Review, Fragmented Voices, The Write Launch, Literary Yard, Down in the Dirt, Bosphorus Review of Books, The National Library of Poetry & Jabberwocky. Upcoming creative writing will be published in: Blank Spaces, Suspended Magazine, Wayward Literature & The Stray Branch. John is working on a novel-in-progress set in WWI-era Canada, “Blood from a Stone.” A collection of his stories is being considered for publication by a Canadian publisher.

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