MASK OF MANY FACES

Who am I, anyway? I wear the mask of many faces. I speak, read, and understand— sometimes with words, sometimes telepathy. My voice changes with my face. I just need a witness. Attuned to me, I become every language you know, but I do not know the geography of my own soul. I dare not look at my face. It is a drama mask— sometimes surgical, sometimes not. Nurse. Poet. Mother. Sinner. Saint. Underneath: no face. I mirror what I see. I am fluid. Mist. The breath you forgot to exhale. I am the diagnosis you didn’t want. The cure you don’t need. Everything and nothing— and still, I bleed love. I have walked through Egypt, China, Italy, Russia— snow made of glass. I’ve been to hell and back. Purgatory is where I live. A mystery to myself. So multilayered I must have alters. I am not a delineating man. Not a good person. Just human. I am lost in Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s vastness— but Earth diminishes me. I look to the moon for inspiration. Spiralling players, man after man, opening up my heart like I’m on a butcher’s block. Venom falls like rain— but dries before it can stain. Archangels turn away. Demons cry. I walk in places others won’t look. My heart breaks daily for the pain we scatter like a farmer’s oats— and we don’t even water our crops. Five sacred wounds: wrists, feet, side. Invisible nails. A spiritual lance. Bloody scars bloom where thorns or teeth cut into my sanity. I am Boudicca’s daughter— Iceni rebel. I am Eve, before and after the apple. I am Adam. I am the snake. I am Lilias Adie, Agnes Finnie, Bridget Cleary. Witch. Wife. Changeling. Burned not for crimes, but for fear. And yet, I rise. I join the uprising of women in philanthropy. I stand on their shoulders and rise above: Malala Yousafzai. Greta Thunberg. Judith Heumann. Janet Mock. Amanda Gorman. Hannah Cockroft, OBE. Dolly Parton. We are many. We rise in waves, and they drown in the tide they made. And still they wonder why we howl at the moon.