The painted monster

Upon me—
and for what?
To wear the mask of your deceit,
to play the villain in a tragedy
never written for me.

It is easier, is it not,
to conjure a fiend
than to gaze into the hollow eyes
of a broken artist?
Your canvas was fraud,
your art but illusion,
and yet—
the cruelest stroke was mine.
For I painted myself
as the monster you feared,
and in the mirror of your hatred
I rehearsed the role
until it was all I knew.

Pain paraded as wisdom,
ignorance crowned itself sage,
and I wore the crown,
unknowing, unwilling—
the jester to your court of despair.

How came I to this role,
without understudy, without script?
Was it fate—
or the cruel jest of gods long dead?
Or did my very breath
fracture the fragile glass
of your reality?

You pressed your anguish into me,
like nails into soft wood.
You locked the cage
and placed the key in my palm—
and I, trembling,
kept myself prisoner
lest I become the thing you named me.

But the masquerade ends.

I relinquish this role.
I renounce this inheritance of sorrow.
The shackles fall,
the stage crumbles.
I will not bear
the phantom sins you wrote into my flesh.

Forgive me—
for I surrender nothing more.
The soul you demanded is gone,
the monster dissolved.
I remain—
but no longer yours to bind.