My Hiding Face B L Blatchley
Spring 1999
A wingless angel to me was sent,
When in danger my soul was rent.

At once entranced by happenstance,
Her eyes lured mine with but a glance.

Reflecting nothing, her face was cold,
Black eyes set within her bold.

Dark they were and liquid deep,
A whole lifetime hid in secret keep.

May I share your face, mine own replace,
That I may hide while we embrace?

Thus: Their cursed, torments disbursed
Would receive no pained-echo in reverse.

Tis much less fun to hurt the one
Whose feelings, from their face, cannot be won!

Yet deep in our heart, in the secret part,
Goes each pain we won’t feel or remember.

Stored til safe-tears, can run from sad-fears,
And arise up clear in the mourning.

My exiles freed from fitfull scorning,
When at dawn, dew wept of their forlorning.

So now in the bright of my soul-morning,
Safe am I, less her frightful adorning.

And no longer untold, my secrets unfold,
Whence gently I loose my embrace.

In memories endear, I will hold her still near.

Behold, this wingless angel has now
--- Disappeared.

About this poem: When I was about ten, I saw the picture of a young Korean girl in National Geographic who had an utterly expressionless face. In a flash, I decided that I would make my face look like her's so that those who tormented me would not have the satisfaction of seeing me feel hurt, and so that it would be harder for others to determine what I thought or felt. I spent days practicing my new look (and tried not to feel what was happening to me); I deliberately "phased-in" my new "face" so that my parents would not be alarmed and confront me with what would be too painful for me to talk about. (Talking to my parents about my inner life was not and is not a safe thing to do.) Now I am able to hide behind her face automatically. Interestingly, my identification with this girl led me to acquire a number of Asian mannerisms, aesthetics, even some language, persisting into my adult life.
 
Psychologist would call what I have done the establishment of a secondary ego defense. I am told that people set these up in themselves in response to pain and/or trauma which is intense enough that the instinctive, unconscious, primary ego defenses (repression, denial, dissociation, etc.) no longer cope. Not only will my psyche create new defences, it will combine existing ones as well; I suspect this is common in people.) It is truly amazing what the human mind, especially that of a child, will do to defend itself.
 
At this writing, I am thirty-seven, and I am progressing into the bottom third of the poem in working through my issues. In some ways my "hiding face" has worked better for me than I could have imagined, but it only postponed the day of reckoning; what preserved me then, impedes me now, and remembering ' and feeling significant parts of my past are only gradually growing less difficult. I know that when I have adequately worked through these, I will no longer need this defense and it will be silently integrated in my more healthy psyche.