Another Face

"Another Face"

I can't heal the hurt that I have

and it's corrosive.

   Rotting me from the inside

and growing to the healthy parts of me.

I feel it at the edges.

   Stretching around the fringes of my face,

tainting my viens, 

ripping me with pain

from tissue to bone 

   and doing it all 

   in secrecy 

as I try to smile 

to hide the hurt 

this pain has wrought.

I'm a facade.

A barely passable 

version of a human.

Just

   a writhing

   mass 

      of flesh and bone 

      with pain 

      boiling just underneath.

Just so I can exist

as just another face.

Contorting and stretching 

my skin 

so I can pass the day 

without having 

to answer 

the questions.

   Without having 

   to show 

      that I have run out of patience.

All the movements and charades

   Just so no one 

   can know 

   that I can't heal the hurt that I have endured.

-Armando Torres