The day my mask falls off… don’t expect that you will get to see a romantic poet showing happiness. Expect a monster unapologetically raining hell.
No one who knows me actually wants to see that version of me. They can say they do. They’ll beg for honesty, for the “real you.” What they mean is a cleaner truth. A version they can survive. Not this.
Because they’ve seen pieces of it before. Just fragments. And even that was enough to burn some bridges. Enough to make them step back, speak softer, choose their words like they’re walking on fire.
So I learned how to behave. I became easier to hold. Softer to touch. I trimmed my edges, swallowed my reactions, turned storms into polite conversations. I made myself smaller so people could feel bigger around me.
But nothing inside me got smaller. The rage didn’t leave. It just went underground.
It sits there now. Dense. Heavy. Breathing. Like a dragon chained in a dark dungeon. And I’m tired. Tired of holding it. Tired of pretending it’s not there. Tired of carrying this much heat in a body that’s expected to stay calm.
This isn’t anger you can vent out by merely writing a blog or going out for a movie. This is the kind that quietly kills you. The kind that rewires you. The kind that makes you question if you’re even safe to be around the people you love.
A part of me doesn’t want to fix it. A part of me wants it to snap.
Wants the leash to break. Wants to stop being the one who always absorbs, always adjusts, always understands. There’s something in me that is done being reasonable. Done being the bigger person. Done translating pain into something acceptable. SIMPLY DONE.
It wants to tear through everything. Just… end the pretending. Not because I enjoy destruction. Because I don’t trust anything that survives only because I keep controlling myself.
Sometimes it feels like the world around me is built on people like me holding back. Swallowing things that should have been said. Forgiving things that should have been confronted. Smiling through things that should have ended.
And I’m reaching a point where I don’t want to be wearing that mask anymore. Call it monstrous. Fine. But at least it’s honest.
I don’t know if this makes me broken or just awake. I don’t know if the mask is the lie or the only thing keeping everyone safe from me. I don’t even know which version is more real anymore.
All I know is this… the thing inside me is not quiet. It is not healed. It is not patient. It is waiting.
People who love me will say they can handle it. They won’t. They’ve handled the edited version. The censored rage. The diluted truth.
This is not that.
And the people who tell me to control it, to calm down, to be better for the sake of everyone else… they never stop to ask what it cost me to get this controlled in the first place.
They don’t want that answer. Because then they’d have to see their part in it. So they hide better. Act cleaner. Become these perfectly managed versions of themselves.
It’s almost funny. Watching people lie to me like they have rehearsed the answers. Watching them pretend they’ve never felt this kind of darkness crawl up their throat. Like they’ve never wanted to break something just to feel a second of control.
I see it. I see all of it. And I stay quiet. Not because I don’t know. Because if I start speaking without the mask… I don’t know where I’ll stop.
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