Please hear what I am not saying

by anonymous

DON'T BE FOOLED BY ME. Don't be fooled by the face I wear. I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks-masks that I am afraid to take off; and none of

them are me.

Pretending is an art that is second nature to me, but don't be fooled. For God's sake, don't be fooled. I give the impression that I am secure, that all is sunny and unruffled within me as well as without; that confidence is my name and and coolness my game, that the water is calm and I am 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, my every 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 that. I don't want anybody to know it. 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 facade-to help me pretend to shield me from the glance that knows. But such a glance is precisely 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 wall, from the barriers I so painstakingly erect. It's the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself-that I am really 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 you'll think less of me that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me; I'm afraid that deep down I'm nothing, 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 facade of assurance without and a trembling child within.

And so begins the parade of masks, the glittering but empty parade of masks. My life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that is nothing and nothing that is everything, of what's crying inside me. So when I'm going through my routine, do not be fooled by what I am saying.

Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying, what I would like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but I can't say.

I dislike hiding, honestly. I dislike the superficial game I am playing, the superficial phony I am being. I'd like to be really genuine and spontaneous and me. But you've got to help me. 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're 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.

Please hear what I am not saying continued.

With your sensitivity and compassion and power of understanding, you can breathe life into me. I want you to know that. I want you to know how imporbant you are to me. How you can be the creator of the person that is me, if you choose to. "Please Choose." You can remove the mask, you alone can release me from my lonely prison. So don't pass me by. Please do not pass me by. It will not be easy for you. My long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach the blinder I might strike back. It's irrational, but despite what books say about a person, I am irrational. I fight against the very thing I cry out for.

But I am told that love is stronger than the strongest walls, and in this lies hope. My only hope! Please try to beat down my wall with firm but gentle hands for for a child is very sensitive, very fearful.

Who am I, you may wonder. I am someone you know very well. For I am every man you meet. I am every woman you meet. I am you.

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