Carried: Face Nerve Pains (Severe) (II)

The traffic between what is felt inside and what is presented outside has broken down, and the break is painful rather than merely inconvenient. Humiliation, anger, sorrow and guilt are all present and none is permitted onto the face, so the surface that meets other people carries a load it was never meant to bear. The self is not concealed strategically here; it is avoided, on the understanding established in a rejecting household that being oneself was the thing that drew fire. What the shape asks for is one accurate expression shown to one person.

There's a version of me I hand out, and I've lost track of where the real one is filed.

Medusa, whose face was made unshowable and who was known thereafter only by the effect of being looked at. The form implies a task: to be met at close range by someone who does not turn away.