It isn’t made of fancy cloth,
but of emptiness sewn tight,
a line drawn clean between
what yearns to be seen
and what hides, in the dark.
It is made of
silence,
and silence
is the loudest thing of all.
Surely they will hear me now.
It carries my refusal,
my defiance,
my secret vow to outlast
the hour, the season,
those who pretend not to wish me away.
So I made it out of
absence,
too pretentious to be ignored.
Surely they will see me now.
Of all the masks I’ve worn for them,
this one is truest yet.
It shows the parts I want them to see,
without betraying myself.
It is made of
nothingness,
vulgar, illustrious, obscene.
Surely they will love me now?
I wear this for all the times I wanted to be known.
Now you get to fill in the blanks.
But this time, on my terms.