Please Listen To What I Am 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 is me.


Pretending is an art that's second nature with me.
But don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled.


I gave you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me,
within as well as without;
that confidence is my name, and coolness my game;
that the weather's calm and I'm in command,
and that I need no one.


But don't believe me. Please.
My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my
mask. Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear,
in aloneness


But I hide this.
I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness and my 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 prescisely my salvation, my only
salvation. And I know it. That is, if it's followed by
acceptance, if it's followed by love.


It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls, from the barriers
that I so painstakingly erect. It's the only thing that
will 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 care. I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love. I'm afraid you'll think less of
me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh will kill me. I'm
afraid that deep down I'm nothing, that I'm just no
good, and that you'll see this and reject me.


So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a façade of assurance without, a trembling
child within. And so begins the parade of masks. And
my life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in the
suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything
that's really nothing, and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying withim 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, what I'd like to be able to
say, what for survival I need to say, but which I can't
say.


I dislike hiding. Honestly.
I dislike the superficial game I'm playing, the
superficial, phony game.
I'd really like to be genuine and spontaneous and me.
BUT YOU'VE GOT TO HELP ME.