THE WOMAN BENEATH THE MASK

You were never the mask… Only the soul learning how to survive beneath it… I remember how the silence felt Like winter underneath my skin Like every shattered piece of me Was something I could never mend So I built myself from shadows From velvet darkness and ritual flame Wore porcelain like armor So nobody could touch my name But underneath the painted sorrow Underneath the fractured glass There was always something breathing The woman beneath the mask Not hidden… Not broken… Just waiting to emerge… The woman beneath the mask Was never made from grief alone She was born inside the silence But she was never truly gone Every scar became a doorway Every wound became a path And all this time beneath the darkness There was light beneath the mask Mwen toujou la I was always here Anba tout doulè a Beneath all the pain Mask la pa t mwen The mask was not me Se mwen ki te anba li It was me beneath it There were nights I thought I vanished Like memory swallowed me whole Like I became the ghost of someone Too afraid to be known But every mirror slowly softened Every shadow lost its teeth And I began to hear a heartbeat Beneath the sorrow underneath The moonlight touched the bayou water Like silver trembling into dawn And for the first time in forever I saw myself… and didn’t run No more hiding No more becoming Only surviving in disguise I can finally stand here And look through my own eyes The woman beneath the mask Was never something made to fear She was all the fragile pieces Learning how to still be here Every memory still matters Every tear became the past But none of it could ever bury The woman beneath the mask I thought survival meant becoming untouchable… But survival… Was allowing myself to be seen… Not as ruin… Not as sorrow… Not as a wound… But as someone still becoming… Mwen wè tèt mwen klè I see myself clearly Mwen pa kache ankò I do not hide anymore Fanm anba mask la The woman beneath the mask Finalman reveye Has finally awakened The woman beneath the mask Was waiting through the endless night Through every whispered elegy Through every fear of being known And now the porcelain is breaking Like dawnlight through cathedral glass And standing in the violet silence… I finally meet myself at last No more shadow No more hiding No more disappearing in the past Only the woman… Still breathing… Beneath the mask I was never gone… Only waiting… To become…