Painted smile stretched across
cracked porcelain,
eyes hidden in hollow circles of charcoal.
The laughter echoes louder than the silence inside,
each gesture rehearsed,every bow a blade.

Beneath the wig,
sweat,memory,
regret dressed in sequins.

Children cheer,
but their joy never reaches the backstage mirror,
where he wipes off colors
like sins he didn't choose.

No one asks
why his shoes are too heavy
or why the makeup never quite covers
the tremble in his hands.

He juggles grief like fire,
balancing sorrow on a wire strung too tight.

And when the lights dim,
and the curtains fall like tired eyelids,
he is just
a man,
alone,
in a face he doesn't know.