The Mask

This is a poem I found. I have no idea when I/we wrote it. It's meaning is not clear to me. I also try hard not to "correct" items in the writing, because I feel that whoever (me) wrote it, wrote it that way for a reason.

A mask is what she wore to cover

An obvious incapability.

At what?

To converse, talk freely, intelligently, to hate, desire, laugh, love?

A yellow veil enclosed her brain,

An actress at heart, but was there more?

He an actor somewhat like herself,

But they were of two kinds,

Similar scripts, but different inside.

“Mechanical beetles” crackle when stepped

upon, but is there no life but the life of an insect?

Can a man remain himself?

Innate characteristics, must they be extinguished?

The New Worlds Symphony, sight, sound, taste, smell,

touch, feel, feeling sensitive?

Yes.

He is like an archeologist,

Digging through her soul, beneath the mask, the smile.

What was buried was not forgotten.

Pompeii lost to the volcano,

I to my mask. You to yours.

She is like a city reborn, lost treasures, re-found.

Hopefully beetles are stepped on,

Man versus insect.

She smiles with mask discarded,

Grateful.

He has and will.

She goes, he smiles.

He stays, she smiles.

Together, they laugh.