You people wear your masks each day afraid to show the fragile
Do you even know who you are?
You don't know
All you know is what they told you to be.
You're so predictable, I know your life before you live it
Hopeless, hopeless, hopelessly lost
Always looking for love. Love always looking for.
It can't be grasped or held
Exhausted from the endless search
Love comes from... Where does it come from?
Who is it's Creator?
Ahh... the Creator!
Find the Creator and find Love?
You people are so mechanical
I know your next move. Boring!
You people wear your masks each day afraid to show the fragile
Do you even know who you are?
You don't know
All you know is what they told you to be.
photography by Bobbi Jo Brooks.
the story unmasked.
there's a story behind this poem. i lost a treasure and now it has been found. i was so young when i wrote this! it had to be late fall in 1997... you see, i was dancing with the Fort Lauderdale Ballet Classique and remember being at a dress rehearsal for the Nutcracker performance that we performed seasonally as is accustomed around that time of year. i parked my car in the auditorium's parking lot, and then while commencing with hours of rehearsals and run-through's, there was some commotion among the crew and stage managers backstage. There was talk about a car being broken into and whose it was. word travels fast and when i came outside, the window to my Mitsubishi Eclipse was indeed smashed on the passenger side, and "they" took some of my most valuable items, or so "they" thought. in fact what was taken would not be of much value to them at all, but to me, priceless!
i left my vintage light brown leather bowling bag in the passenger seat. the contents were irreplaceable, but not what the criminals expected. my "book" was in that bag, also known as a model's portfolio - gone! the photos were amazing and i am still proud to have worked with some of the greatest photographers in the industry. the only good thing is that most of the photos were already saved digitally and could be replaced. i also carried a portable dvd player around that i used for possible presentations with my music. that too was gone, but not much of a concern to me. but the most dear item to me that was taken was my journal that held in it all my creative thoughts and poetry, lyrics and anything else that came to my creative mind. this was my treasure! i can imagine these thieves thinking that they found a bag that contained money or credit cards, or something that could be sold on the streets for a few hundred dollars, but when they looked in, they probably just threw it all away disappointed from all that effort. but out of all the inconvenience, my journal and the fact that it may be gone forever devastated me. i didn't want to even think that i placed it in that bag, but deep down i knew i'd lost it and was praying that i was careless in this one instant. the only thing on my mind was to get home and find this book safe. searching all around i knew it was gone, but i still looked in different places where i could have possibly left it, still hoping that i didn't do what i know i did.
it was this poem, now named "unmasked" that had always haunted my conscience. i so loved the first line imprinted on my mind: "You people where masks each day afraid to show the fragile". i wanted to revisit this thought more and to craft this lost treasure and bring it to its fruition, but i knew it was now lost and gone forever and i would never be able to remember exactly what i said. i had the option to rewrite this poem and it could go in many different ways, but what was a trying to say at such a young age and why? and how could i replace the essence of what was now lost? and now looking back i realize it was a profound opening statement that i still cherish today!
i've been in Miami for some time now, cleaning out my whole life and the things in it. i stumbled upon this old journal given to me by a girlfriend a while back on my birthday - she writing the first entry, encouraged me to write and fill it with all my creative ideas. somehow i must have copied this poem from the journal that had been stolen. it's funny now, because i've looked through this before desperately that it might be there and for years the pages that contained it had missed my eyes. after all these years, i have found my lost treasure!
usually i make major edits on my writings that i publish, crafting the words, shapes and punctuation. but in this case i have generally left this as is, in it rawest form. i've only made small changes with line structure and punctuation. it has not been reworked. the only major word change is in the first line where i replaced the word "every" with "each" as it had been rehearsed in my mind for years. for me it shows a young mind at work exploring topics that are still important to me that still need to be fleshed out and possibly reworked in the future. but until then, i hope this poem does all it can to those who read it
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