Maya Angelou, We Wear The Mask

The Mask by Maya Angelou We wear the mask that grins and lies. It shades our cheeks and hides our eyes. This debt we pay to human guile With torn and bleeding hearts… We smile and mouth the myriad subtleties. Why should the world think otherwise In counting all our tears and sighs. Nay let them only see us while We wear the mask. We smile but oh my God Our tears to thee from tortured souls arise And we sing Oh Baby doll, now we sing… The clay is vile beneath our feet And long the mile But let the world think otherwise. We wear the mask. When I think about myself I almost laugh myself to death. My life has been one great big joke! A dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke. I laugh so hard HA! HA! I almos’ choke When I think about myself. Seventy years in these folks’ world The child I works for calls me girl I say “HA! HA! HA! Yes ma’am!” For workin’s sake I’m too proud to bend and Too poor to break So…I laugh! Until my stomach ache When I think about myself. My folks can make me split my side I laugh so hard, HA! HA! I nearly died The tales they tell sound just like lying They grow the fruit but eat the rind. Hmm huh! I laugh uhuh huh huh… Until I start to cry when I think about myself And my folks and the children. My fathers sit on benches, Their flesh count every plank, The slats leave dents of darkness Deep in their withered flank. And they gnarled like broken candles, All waxed and burned profound. They say, but sugar, it was our submission that made your world go round. There in those pleated faces I see the auction block The chains and slavery’s coffles The whip and lash and stock. My fathers speak in voices That shred my fact and sound They say, but sugar, it was our submission that made your world go round. They laugh to conceal their crying, They shuffle through their dreams They stepped ’n fetched a country And wrote the blues in screams. I understand their meaning, It could an did derive From living on the edge of death They kept my race alive By wearing the mask! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! NOTES: An adaptation of the poem by Paul Lawrence “We Wear the Mask”