Stuck In Your Mask

By Ashutosh Anand

“how long I am going to carry you like a burden which is a necessity for myself”

I stood there in front of the mirror. Just the usual day, getting freshened up. Combing my hair and thoughts straight up. There it was on the shelf. One thing that I need the most. Maybe we all do? But lately, I have been using it way more than anything. Like a kid trying the variety of cotton candy. But like an adult using drugs, which gives the joy of being on cloud nine. Not wanting to let go of it, Picking it up and fixing it up like a new piece of my puzzle of self. The unwanted one which I don’t want in my life. But yet I keep stomping it, to get it fixed. Even if it disturbs the whole puzzle of me. I’ll fix this piece for today and this story keeps on going and going. Even if it doesn’t fit me maybe it will for others. But hey at least this will make me feel okay throughout the day. But at least it will hide my real face for the day as long as I will put on this mask for the day. I mean, in a way we all have this mask right? Even though it is not for you. You put it in on to make yourself okay. Blend in where you don’t want to. Sure it does help with most of the things around you. But the cost of having this mask around with you is larger and longer. More than a mere human soul can afford. A deal with the devil might sound better at this point. Each time I’m putting on this mask, each time I’m molding a new mask for something or someone. Somehow it is changing my core. Spreading like a virus. The true puzzle of myself, which we all have. Which we all have to explore on our own being ourselves. Finding every piece daily which belongs to your true puzzle of you. But now, we are sometimes forced by the strings of our surroundings into being someone or somewhere where we don’t want to be. Put on a mask, on our soul and we end up adapting to the situation like a fine wine and dine. But this mask ends up slowly shattering our core, our soul, and the puzzle that we need to piece together by ourselves. Slowly making us something that we don’t want to be. Then slowly everyone around you will start to wonder, why are you changing or you are not like what you used to be. How can I be what I was? When all of you, made sure that you wanted me for what you needed. Not for what I am and what can I be for you. That’s it for today’s quill.

The rumble began for both my emotions and my body. Being a final-year student takes a toll on you. The faces I see, the faces I adore, the faces I hate, the faces I crave and I don’t even know if they are what I see or if they are just having that mask on, which I’m looking at. It’s truly hard and painful to look at everyone and myself nowadays. Not because they have a mask but because now I do too. I mean now when I look back. I had it all along but it was not when I realized it that I’m starting to lose myself slowly.

The day begins as if it was a simulation for me. The professors are irritated with everyone and we wonder when will this class get over, SO, we can go back to the next class. which will at least try hard to give us something for our money. Can’t blame him, probably wants to quit but there are only a few who are willing to get up and come to a morning class, full of students who don’t even want to be there. But coming to me, I’m still trying to figure out in what dimension I am ]. I swear these early morning classes do fuck your routine over and over. I can’t act bored or uninterested m because I don’t want to shatter the hope of professors when they are looking at me. I am sympathetic, even though I want to walk away right now from the door, even though I want to shut my eyes and di the “head down” when I was in kindergarten. But I won’t, because I am a grown-up teen now. So here it is the first mask of the day for me, Maybe you have this too? When you want to be looked at by someone who is paying attention or is loving the still state for hours. So you need or already have this mask. Covering your true expressions every mask will end up doing that. It’s just the complexity of the mask and situation that keeps on changing. This is the most simple one, try it when you want to pay attention to someone or something. But you can’t, so you have to buckle up and get this mask on your face and act like it’s all right and you are truly in an immersive state for that someone or something. So today you will be walking with me and exploring what you are hiding and what I am hiding within these masks and how much I have lost in being the mask that I need to be to fit in. Just for the sake of my sanity. This is almost the first pit stop. You see or become in this world of masks. Then comes the most important one or should I say the most prestigious one. My previous friend circles. As I stand with them after so-called hectic classes of the day. Everyone ranting about their day. What they hated the most, what they loved the most, what they lusted the most. Here I am stuck on guessing whether even one of them is the real them or not. Sometimes I feel like each one is different, I am interacting with my friend’s group either my mask is adapting to them on its own or just deflecting whatever they are projecting over me. Sometimes being fascinated by their words, I feel like being them for that one instant. Sometimes being utterly disgusted by their words I feel like sinking myself into despair or ripping that mask on their face. Scream, shout, slur saying “this is not you. So stop trying to be this person that you are not. Stop lying, stop saying you did this, you did that, you did them. No one is here cheering for you. From their core. They all are on their mask acting to be fitted by you and vice-versa by everyone” But I stood there nodding and telling them “oh that’s good” At the end, I walk away with my words or whatever I uttered there, I don’t remember after a few steps down on my path. At this point of the day, I’m already halfway drained and fed up by everything around but that one cheerful face brightens me up. The one who sits with me in a crowded corridor, legs hanging to other masks. For once I feel like I am myself for once I feel like I am myself with here. A buck of coffee and her soothing voice. That’s all I need in one hell of a hellish day. Even though I knew I should be grateful and happy that here she is taking me and walking down my road. That she is giggling at the same words that I used to find cringe, But as soon as I feel my mask fading away by her touch and aurora. Then my anxiety creeps up on me, building the humming barriers which make me feel less, again getting that mask up because of her kindness because what if she is just having one too? I know we all have our battle scars. For her, it will be the night when she was broken completely and peeled her mask off and shattered it being

“You remember the part in phir le aaya (back again) song. Wo jo adhuri se baat baaki hai. (The left on talks) That’s all that we lost souls are you know. Even though our every bit of last hope when shattered to pieces. Wo jo ruki si chahh baaki hai. (The left-on feelings) .Somehow that comes up every fucking time. Not even hoping now, begging on my knees. For things to change now, but no. The same barriers I had since the beginning and seeing everyone in it. It’s just a drink right, it’s just a cigarette, isn’t it? Why shouldn’t I drink huh why! I will. I mean he did while raising me, even he did when he went away. Everyone did but I can’t. At least, I won’t hear anyone ranting about me. Shhh! Don’t tell anyone…… our little secret... sure you don’t want to drink”

I Wish I could be like that but that’s just not me. I end up holding back everything inside, creating multiple masks to adapt and overcome something or someone. To avoid something or someone. To not let them know what I am, because I don’t know and I will never know. Because I am stuck with myself with a mask made of you, have you seen one of the images or felt like you are holding back your words, your thoughts, your grudge? That’s all you trying to escape or a fight fighting within you. Waiting to explode or just kill you from within, But you can’t let them all out. So you choose these masks each one dripping that thirsty bloodlust slowly dripping. So that you don’t go insane. But is it helping you or me?

Finally, the moon hit my sheets. As if my daily routine was to bleed and cry. I bleed a lot while taking off this mask. It’s like, it is becoming a part of me slowly. You cannot scratch it that easily. Since it is me. It always has been me. I look back with my thoughts, wishing to pray with his blood-soaked mask in front of my mirror on my knees. Wishing if that one time, what could have happened or could have been now? If I choose to speak that I don’t like this for once, If I choose to stand up from that circle. Where no one wanted me and even I didn’t want to be there. I could have been the realm that was kissed last night. The real me that was appreciated at that time. But it’s too late now, isn’t it? Look at my shelves they are filled with the masks that I carry. Blood soaked m each one having its own face heart, soul, and lust for settling in. Even this one will make a fine addition to my collection, You know why it bleeds so much? Because I and even you end up adapting so much to this masking process, that you love it. It becomes a necessity like a drug to survive and this modern era is like this. We have to either keep on the mask and get loved for what we are or whatnot. Or just lose it be yourself and fade away from everyone but get to be the real you. Am I stuck in the mask created by you or it was just me who didn’t know how to deal with everything around me? The ones who were meant to teach us, how to deal with this. Never knew this could happen. But guess what mom and dad? These pills are not working anymore! I kept screaming this until I was splashed onto my bed. The masks lay on the floor, The mirror is broken as my thoughts. Blood spread along the sheets as my words with you. I can feel each one of you fading away, I can feel each one of these masks burning away finally. I am feeling like a phone right now. Burning all of myself and these masks at once. Just to rise to either be me to the new dawn or mould a new mask from the ashes to a new dawn for me. I will be always stuck in a mask. But this dawn. It will be a mask of myself.

By Ashutosh Anand