jheycee: Please Listen To What I'm Not Saying

jheycee: Please Listen To 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, I wear a thousand masks. Mask I’m afraid to take off, And none..."

Please Listen To 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, I wear a thousand masks.
Mask I’m afraid to take off,
And none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that’s second nature to me.
Don’t be fooled, for God’s sake, don’t be fooled.

I gave you an 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 is my game;
That the water’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 a 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 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 my salvation, my only salvation.
And 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 that will assure me of what I can’t assure myself,
That I am really worth something

But I don’t dare to tell you this.
I don’t dare.
I’m afraid to.
I’m afraid that your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love.
I’m afraid that 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 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,
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 really everything,
 Of what’s crying within 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 really like to be genuine
And spontaneous
And me.

BUT YOU’VE GOT TO HELP ME.
(memories of my retreat, 2007)