No One Lives his Life

by Raine Maria Rilke

Disguised since childhood,
haphazardly assembled
from voices and fears and little pleasures,
we come of age as masks.

Our true face never speaks.
Somewhere there must be storehouses
where all these lives are laid away
like suits of armour or old carriages
or cloths hanging limply on the walls.

Maybe all paths lead here,
to the repository of unlived things.