life's nothing but a masquerade ball.

we all wear masks,
we find partners to dance with,
we laugh, even if it is behind a mask,
or perhaps it is merely the mask that's doing the laughing for us.
laughing at us,
for our idiocy,
our foolishness
which makes us believe that there is love.

one woman runs out of the room,
having seen her lover with another.
puffy red eyes are a result of lies
breaking a heart,
soul,
mind,
etc.
she runs out to the balcony to cry,
and in a split second decision-

nobody hears her hit the ground below.

the masquerade continues on.
the men dashing in their suits,
the women radiant in their dresses,
and all you can see is the smiles underneath the mask.

a man excuses himself from the scene to use the restroom.
a seemingly harmless excuse,
until his smile under the mask is a smile no more.
it is an o, releasing the contents of his stomach into the toilet below.
can you vomit water? i suppose you can.
that and the two saltine crackers he has eaten today, the only thing sustaining him.
he had wanted to appear desirable, but alas,
he was still fat.

two stalls down from him is a man who is shaking,
trying to tell himself to man up and go back out,
trying to wipe the tears off of his blotchy face
because nobody saw him trip and fall.
nobody saw it.
right?
but what if they saw it, what if they're all laughing at him,
what if-
what if-
what if!

the host of the ball makes an appearance, to greet the guests at last.
he drops down from the ceiling and the guests promptly gasp.
his lips are blue,
his eyes are closed,
and to accent his suit, he has a noose around his neck.

the masquerade is over, the guests all leave,
but the lover from the beginning no longer has a wife to beat.