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, 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
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.
Charles C. Finn
September
1966
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