Don't believe me

Please, hear what I'm not saying. Don't be fooled by me. Do not be fooled by the face I show. Because I do wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off, and none of them are really me. Pretending is an art that's become second nature to me, but do not be fooled. For my sake and yours do not be fooled.

I may give the impression that I am secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name and coolness my game. The waters calm and I am in command, and that I need no one.

Don't believe me. Please.

My surface may seem 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 and alone. But I hide this. I do not want anybody to know this. I panic at the thought of my weaknesses and fear of being exposed. That is 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 my salvation. My only salvation.

And I know it.

That is, only if it is followed by acceptance. If it is followed by love. It is 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 is the only thing that will assure me of what I cannot assure myself, that I am really worth something. But I do not tell you this...I don't dare. I am afraid to. I am afraid that your glance will not be followed by acceptance or love. I am afraid that you will think less of me, that you will laugh, and your laughter will kill me.

I am afraid that deep down I am nothing, that I am no good, and that you will see this and reject me utterly. So I play my game, my desperate pretending game, a facade of assurance without and 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 within me.

So when I go through my routine, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying, what I cannot say. I dislike hiding. Honestly, I dislike the superficial game I am playing, the superficial phony game. I would really like to be genuine and spontaneous, and me, but I need help. Help to hold my hand even when it seems to be the last thing in the world that I want or need. Help to wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead. Only you can call me back into life. Each time you are kind, and gentle, and encouraging. Each time try to understand because you really care my heart starts to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but still wings. With your sympathy and sensitivity and your power of understanding you can breathe new life into me. I want you to know how important you are to me, how you can be the creator of the person that is me if you choose to.

Please choose to. You can break down the wall behind which I tremble. You can release me from the shadow world of panic and uncertainty. So do not pass me by. Please do not pass me by. It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike. It is irrational but desperate. I am irrational, not like what the books say about what a man should be, they say that man (as a species) is the only rational animal but I know that they are wrong. I fight the only thing that I cry out for. But I am told that love is stronger than the strongest walls, and in this lies my hope, my only hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands, but gentle too, because a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder? I might be someone you think you know very well. I might be right next to you or behind you or across the room from you or someone you haven't even met.

 Yet.