The Masks Fall Off at Midnight

                                                              (To my last lady love)


I truly did believe you were my friend.
You claimed to be, and acted so;
But you were subtler and more street-wise than I.
You later showed you did not care whether I live or die,
Or how much I suffer--with or without love and support;
You used kisses and hugs to deceive me--then took all away.
The feel of love and support I need so much, as I hope and pray,
Against all odds, to be cured, or at least to live
Far beyond the time the doctors give--
Or as indicated by many a scan and its report.
I thought you were my girl, as well as anything I know.
It hurts to know now it was not really so.
To you, my main attraction was the money I could spend.
But all illusions are coming to an end:
The masks fall off at midnight.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Still and all, I find it very strange
How little are the things that make large change.
The little sequence of unimportant events--
Singing briefly, in time's bright impermanence--
That add up all at once to something huge,
To blessings or to curses--as time hurries hence.
To catch a cure, or a lot more time, is my hopeful dream.
I need a lady's loving caresses and kisses sweet as mints.
Such a loving lady your hugs and kisses made you to seem.
Time and truth have broken open uncaring subterfuge.
Your true face hid beneath lipstick and mascara and rouge.
But every mask that men and women wear is tied to transience:
The masks fall off at midnight.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To flip the light-switch sweetly on or serenely off--of life--
Requires more than medicine or the surgeon's knife.
It takes humane concern in hearts, open and true.
But though human hearts are hidden from each other's view,
The masks fall off at midnight.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sometimes I look up at the stars.
Such inconceivable distance! Such powered light!
To carry it for millennia to reach my sight--
On this precise moment when my world is full of night.
All that power, all that energy!
Wasting always, in unhelping entropy.
I loved the world so much--so very, very much--
Why, why, did the world not love me?
You pretended to be my blessing, but then became a blight.
If they are right who say
That there shall be a fair and honest Judgment Day,
Then it will be known who was wrong and who was right.
Then spirits shall fly, or joyful life reanimate pathetic clay.
But if there is no power able or willing to set wrongs right,
Then evil's victory is sealed in the past's untouchable time,
And injustices will be forever unrectified in cold cosmic crime.
But reality will reveal itself, either way:
The masks fall off at midnight.


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Written by Michael LP, aka PoetWithCancer
aka (thanks to my dear friend Luna Marie) Mr. Poet
Written on Monday, November 21, 2011 2:11 AM PST
53 degrees F. Humidity: 47% Forecast: overcast
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP. All rights reserved
(Copyrighted for my estate)