Let me not be weak and tell others how bleeding I am internally; how day by day it drips, and gathers, and congeals.
All of us have ways in which we mask and cover our pain.
We [Blacks] wear the mask that grins and lies It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes.
Those of us who make up poems have agreed not to say what the pain is.
Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.
Mirth is the Mail of Anguish --
Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain: Lest sorrow lend me words and words express, The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
I don't think any other emotion is the equivalent of laughter. So I do whatever I can to laugh all the time and to hide my pain.
Human life, like all inferior goods, is covered on the outside with a false glitter; what suffers always conceals itself.
