"Oni"

Every morning, paint on the same mask
Don the costume that cleverly hides my true self
In a perfected actor's role that I live as my life.

Hiding the dirty oni that dwells beneath
A rigid mix of poise and perfection and grace
Never to show the stab wounds just below the skin.

Every night the hardened lacquer cracks
And it slowly crumbles to ash, piling at my feet
While my disguise slips just enough to show the black.

Sleeping the dreamless sleep throughout
A night so cold and desolate for a lost soul
That always wanders for the warmth of some affection.

- 31/Jan/2005


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*oni = demon (in Japanese)

I usually strongly dislike using random Japanese words (people who say "omg that's so kawaii!!" should be shot) but at the time that I wrote this "oni" seemed to describe the image in my mind the best. It probably has some other, totally different image if you actually say it to a Japanese person though, haha.