Stage Makeup

Each morning,
I paint over pain
like stage makeup,
thick, practiced,
the kind meant
to catch the lights
and hide the bruise.

The joints ache
before the sun lifts.
I sip water
like it’s medicine
and take medicine
like it’s hope.
I stretch the fire
from my hands,
smile at the mirror
like I believe her.

You wouldn’t guess
how many systems
betray me at once.
How blood turns
on its own veins.
How bones can buzz
like broken circuits
with no warning.

But I arrive
on time.
Respond to emails
with exclamation points.
Say yes
to the last-minute meeting
even if sitting
feels like war.

The truth is
my body is an understudy,
always rehearsing
for collapse.
And still,
I pull on slacks
like armor.
Tap my keyboard
like I’m not unraveling
cell by cell.

This illness
asks for everything
but rarely speaks.
So I don’t either.

I just blend the redness
until it looks like blush.
Swallow the heat
until it tastes like drive.
Build a life
that doesn’t make room
for being sick
because no one
ever gave me the script
for slowing down.

At night,
I wash off the layers,
the pigment,
the pretense,
and ache
in the dark
where no one claps
for endurance.

Meg Taylor is a Midwestern poet whose work explores resilience, loss, and transformation through sharply drawn imagery and emotional clarity. Her poetry often examines the quiet intersections of illness, identity, and becoming whole. Her work has appeared in Wingless Dreamer, The Write Launch, and WILDsound Writing Festival.