A Mask of Mirrors

A Mask of Mirrors


I never knew you till you were dead.
I didn’t know what happened in your head.
I never knew your secrets or your many men.
I didn’t know that’s what you needed then.

Some faulty wiring started it,
So I took up the floor.
I found some papers in the pit
And then I found some more.
While some of them were letters,
Many more were sketches bold;
They would have shocked my betters
By revealing scandals old.
In this world little ’s certain,
Of few things I was sure;
I lifted mystery’s curtain
When I took up that floor.
Inside the secret hiding place
Was proof I had not known,
A single thing not in the face
Of one round whom I’d grown.
I’d heard things and I’d seen,
But I hadn’t quite believed;
I’d known the truth they hadn’t been,
But I had been deceived.
Oh, confidence in judgement mine
And what I’d known was true;
It fell to ash with every line
And every sketch she drew.
A face unknown looked back at me
From pictures in my hand
And letters told the tales that she
Thought I’d not understand.
Two spirits trapped within one shell
Had been before my eyes,
Now one ghost had the truth to tell,
Revealed the other’s lies.
The one that I had known as good
Had really been a mask,
As false as one cut out of wood;
She wore it as love’s task.
The lies that one had lived all day,
Not daring hint the truth,
By other’s hand were ripped away
And thus I lost my youth.

You never knew that I would understand.
You’ll never know I could or would.
You never knew I’d take your hand.
You’ll never know I understood.

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