All I hear are words of hurt.
They stab, they cut, and they bruise.
I hold my breath and try my best to listen on,
yet I cannot bring myself to.
Hence I cut the only channel from your voice to my ears,
And look away.

--

“What am I to you?”
“A clown. One who entertains.”

A clown. An entertainer.
One to do anything,
anything just to hear cheers from the crowd.
Their cheers and laughter all supposedly build who I am.
Expectations?
To fall and stumble whenever the ring master ordered me to.
To do the stupidest and most idiotic of things just to get attention.
To make a fool of myself just for the pleasure of others.
What am I to you, a fool?
A mere fool who slams pie in my face?
Watching thousands of people laugh and some jeering,
I smeared it alongside with the heavy makeup across my face.

And then.
There you stood among the crowd,
A face who belonged to no ordinary person, it was you.
You stood out as you ate a fluff of pink cotton candy.
You were beautiful, one of a kind.
Finally, your eyes met mine.
I gave a distorted smile as the makeup left me hideous.
You saw nothing but the smeared make up and took me like the rest.

“Pathetic, another attention seeker. Entertain.. is all you’ll ever do.”,
you muttered under your breath.

I couldn’t read your lips.
you were too far away.
The makeup had blurred my vision.
Clouded. That’s how it was.
It stung as it came into contact with my eyes,
yet throughout, I took effort to force it open,
wanting to see her so badly.

During that period of pain,
I kept looking and never left your gaze.
Here I stood as a hideous beast thinking to myself,
She knew.
When she looked at me,
She, knew who I was. What kind of person I am.
I felt, as though you could read past everything and see,
That the smile on my face is just a façade.
“See past it please.”
I crossed my fingers.
“See the hurt within my heart. Erase the smile drawn on my face and just hold me tight.”

The blurred figure shook her head.
She left.

That’s when I knew, she didn’t know me as much as I thought she would.

Forever in her mind,
I would be engraved as THAT clown she saw.
The entertainer like the rest.