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The Outside Face
by Mary C. McCarthy

My first mask was automatic
weightless, one I barely felt
but my mother saw it
saying, “Oh, you have your
Outside Face on.”
A face I must have carefully designed
somewhere behind my waking mind,
something I must have needed
to keep me safe
in the open spaces
outside our rooms and windows,
something bland and inoffensive,
tempting no intrusion,
giving nothing up
to anyone who might come looking
for a chink in my armor,
a key to the gate,
a bridge across the dark moat
around my fragile castle,
built of glass and moonlight,
fairytales and dreams.

All the while I waited there
behind my Outside Face
for the good godmother
I hoped would come
to grant my three best wishes
and make me safe forever
a girl too hard to see
too small to find
too fast to catch.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Sometimes the masks we most frequently wear aren’t made of anything but the expression we hide behind. Mothers, of course, can always see through them.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mary C. McCarthy studied art and literature, and has always been a writer, though she spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. Her work has appeared in many electronic and print journals and anthologies, and she has an electronic chapbook, Things I Was Told Not to Think About, available as a free download from Praxis Magazine.