Chuck Peterson

The Borrowed Face

I choose my mask—

a polished smile,

quiet eyes

looking past everyone in the room,

the yes before anyone asks—

afraid my own skin

would not be enough.

I brush past others,

strangers’ shoulders meeting in a crowd—

brief pressure,

then the quick pull away

I have learned to expect.

Then something gives—

a breath held too long

that slipped beneath the surface—

a hairline fracture

running through the glass

I had been calling a window.

I see the broken pieces at my feet:

a painted smile,

a child’s open hands,

the dream I set down,

the grief folded small enough to carry unnoticed,

and a face I do not yet know—

calm, unhurried,

waiting.

I kneel among the fragments.

Nothing asks to be hidden.

Something moves around me now,

a hand that does not pull away.

And there,

without the polished smile,

without the borrowed face,

I stand—

not flawless,

not finished,

only honest.

It is enough.