Why Are We All Wearing Masks?

In today’s culture of primarily relating and connecting through Facebook, Instagram and texts, it is getting more difficult to know who people really are underneath the selfies, filters and updates. It seems to me that more and more, we’re getting more comfortable relating to the masks people wear than we are at creating real connection with each other. As I pondered this dilemma, the following words tumbled out in a piece I titled “A Thousand Masks.”

Maybe none of us are who we say we are. We’re all just empty shells or maybe burnt out stars.

That once reflected light from an ecstatic sun until the fire went out and we became no one.

Maybe all of us became afraid to look so we lined our faces up inside of one big book.

And we would only share our brightest shiny fun and emptiness moved in and we became no one.

So many faces trying to decide what matters most so instead of living we’re all deciding what to post.

Maybe none of us are who we really want to be. We’ve just collected years like rings inside a tree

And when we tried to climb the ladders we fell into the rungs and so we stayed on our knees ‘til we become no one.

We became no one when we disengaged to wear a thousand masks in a mask parade and then we marched in line until we lost touch.

And wore a thousand masks and were still not enough, a thousand masks and none of them were us.