Unbecoming the Mask

An exercise in vulnerability. Sapphic colors of the mind wisp about the canvas, yet the most beautiful spaces are covered by a thick, opaque mask with the words which put it there. The internalized social criticisms an undiagnosed autistic girl receives daily; death by a thousand paper cuts. The chronic misfit. Through windows, one can observe bits and pieces of the individual beneath, but it's never the whole picture, and only revealed with great care. The mask is held tight by a stretched and worn out pink band of femininity; behind it, the high frequency of an autist mind - ever perceptive, ever problem solving, ever repeating, never at rest. The figures of self pressed into the back of the mind, anguished and alone, faceless from years of deleting personality and self for social survival.