Barefaced

Full face on
Party at eight
I looked at the mirror —
And wiped half of it off

Forty minutes at the bathroom sink
Building the woman they were expecting —
The contour, the armour, the practised eyes
The smile I keep in the top drawer
Next to the receipts and the spare buttons
The smile that matches nothing I feel
And the mirror, rude thing, honest thing
Just kept showing me the scaffolding
So I stood there, brush in the air
And asked out loud: who is this for?
The mirror didn't blink. Neither did I
I picked up the cotton pad like a verdict
Warm water running, the little ceremony
The scaffolding coming down in swirls

I kept the lipstick. Lost the mask
Kept the hoops. Lost the act
Forty minutes of building somebody —
Undone, gorgeously, in two

Barefaced!
(As I am)
Walked through the door wearing my own face
Someone said "different — good different" —
Barefaced, and finally home

Different
(Good different)
Same me

Here's what nobody warned me about honesty
It photographs beautifully
I laughed my actual laugh — the loud one
The one I'd been sanding down for years —
And the kitchen conversation turned toward it
Like plants toward a window
Someone put my song on. My actual song
The one I only sing in the car
I sang it. In front of people. Loud
An old friend did a double-take by the fridge
"There she is," she said. "There she is"
Two words, twice, by the hummus
I nearly cried into the crisps
Stayed till the end. Helped stack the chairs
Laughed the loud laugh at the bus stop after

I kept the lipstick. Lost the mask
Kept the hoops. Lost the act

Forty minutes of building somebody —
Undone, gorgeously, in two

Barefaced!
(As I am)
Walked through the door wearing my own face

(As I am)
My actual laugh turned heads by the kitchen —
Barefaced, and finally home

The armour's in the drawer
The drawer can keep it
The smile came with me. The real one
That old voice has its own sink somewhere
Its own forty minutes. Not mine

The performance was never for them
It was for a voice I inherited
That said "presentable" and meant "invisible"
I wiped it off with cotton and warm water
Under it, the whole time
Was a face that looks like my mother's
When she's about to laugh

Barefaced!
(As I am)
Kitchen light and my mother's laugh coming
"There she is," she said. "There she is" —
Barefaced, and finally home

Full face off
(There she is)
Barefaced