Third shelf, kitchen cupboard on left

As this poem is awaiting publiction elsewhere, only the first two stanzas are offered here. 

 

brittle smile painted on lips, fixed in place

on the face I wear outside,

the role play face, the daytime face

the one I wear for the folk I meet

fumbling my way in the

dusk to dawn rays, 

the twilight mist which

shrouds new days and

suffocates my nights

 

the other I hide on the third shelf

in the kitchen cupboard on the left,

behind a stash of things I never buy

salvation in tinned peaches,

the canned calm of artichokes

peanut buttered escape,

piled high on a shelf to hide a face

I don’t want others to see