Please Hear What I’m Not Saying

Please Hear What I’m Not Saying

Don’t be fooled by me.

Don’t be fooled by the face I wear.

For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks.

Masks that I’m afraid to take off

And none of them are me.

 

Pretending is an art that’s second nature to me; But don’t be fooled,

for God’s sake don’t be fooled!

I give you the impression that I’m secure

That all is sunny and unruffled in me, within as well as without.

That confidence is my name and coolness my game.

 

That the waters are calm and I’m in command, that I need no-one

But don’t believe me!

 

My surface may be smooth, but my surface is my mask.

My ever varying and ever-concealing mask.

Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.

Beneath dwells the real me, in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.

But I hide this

I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed,

that’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind.

A nonchalant, sophisticated façade to help me pretend.

To shield me from the glance that knows!

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, if it’s followed by

acceptance and love.

 

It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself, form my self built

prison walls.

From the barriers that I so painstakingly erect.

It’s the only thing that can assure me of what I can’t assure myself…

That I’m really worth something

But I don’t tell you this

I don’t dare...I’m afraid to

I’m afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love.

 

I’m afraid that deep down I’m noting, that I’m just no good and that

you will see this and reject me.

So, I play my game, my desperate pretending game with a façade of

assurance without and a trembling child within.

And so begins the parade of masks.

The glittering but empty parade of masks and my life becomes a front.

I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.

 

I tell you everything that’s nothing and nothing of what’s everything of

what’s crying within me.

So when I’m going through my routine Don’t be fooled by what I’m

saying

Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m NOT saying.

Hear what I’d like to say, but what I cannot say.

I dislike hiding, honestly

I dislike the superficial game I’m playing

I’d really like to be genuine and spontaneous and me,

But you’ve got to hold out your hand….

Even when that’s the last thing I seem to want or need.

Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing

 

Dead…

Only you can call me into aliveness..

Each time you are kind and gentle and encouraging.

Each time you try to understand because you really care

My heart begins to grow wings…

Very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings

With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding,

You can breathe life into me.

I want you to know that.

I want you to know how important you are to me.

How you can be a creator of the person that is me, if you choose to…

 

It won’t be easy for you

A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.

The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back:

It’s irrational, but despite what the books say about people,

I’m irrational!!

 

I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.

But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls, and in this lies

my hope.

My only hope.

Please try to beat down these walls with firm hands.

But with gentle hands, for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I , you may wonder?

I’m someone you know very well.

For I am every man or woman you meet.

Anonymous.