Don’t be fooled by me. | |
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear | |
for I wear a mask, 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 give 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 water’s calm and I’m in command | |
and that I need no one, | |
but don’t believe me. | |
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask, | |
ever-varying and ever-concealing. | |
Beneath lies no complacence. | |
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness. | |
But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it. | |
I panic at the thought of my weakness 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 hope, | |
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 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 dare to, I’m afraid to. | |
I’m afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance, | |
will not be followed by 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 | |
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. | |
So begins the glittering but empty 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 within me. | |
So when I’m going through my routine | |
do not 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 what I can’t say. | |
I don’t like hiding. | |
I don’t like playing superficial phony games. | |
I want to stop playing them. | |
I want to be 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. | |
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! | |
With your power to touch me into feeling | |
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–an honest-to-God creator– | |
of the person that is me | |
if you choose to. | |
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble, | |
you alone can remove my mask, | |
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic, | |
from my lonely prison, | |
if you choose to. | |
Please choose to. | |
Do not pass me by. | |
It will not be easy for you. | |
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. | |
The nearer you approach to me | |
the blinder I may strike back. | |
It’s irrational, but despite what the books say about man | |
often I am irrational. | |
I fight against the very thing I cry out for. | |
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls | |
and in this lies my hope. | |
Please try to beat down those walls | |
with firm hands but with gentle hands | |
for a child is very sensitive. | |
Who am I, you may wonder? | |
I am someone you know very well. | |
For I am every man you meet | |
and I am every woman you meet. | |
— Written by: Charles C. Finn | |
September 1966 | |
[You can find Mr. Finn’s site at: http://www.poetrybycharlescfinn.com | |
Please don’t neglect to vote today. It’s one of life’s few opportunities to let everyone know what you are thinking AND saying. — KMAB] | |
. | |
I absolutely love this poem.
Had you read it before or was this the first time you’d found it? I first read it many years ago and I kind of “re-discover” it every now and then when I read through my old journals.