PLEASE LISTEN TO WHAT I AM NOT SAYING.

Do not be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear.
For I wear a mask…
a thousand masks…
Masks that I am 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 am secure…
That all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well without…
That confidence is my name and coolness my game…
That’s the water’s calm and I am 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 and fear 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 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 is the only thing that can liberate me from myself…
From my own self-built prison walls…
From the barriers I so painstakingly erect. I
t’s the only thing that will assure me of what I can’t assure myself…
That I am really worth something. 

But I don’t tell you this,
I don’t dare.
I am afraid to.
I am afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance…
Will not be followed by love. 

I am afraid you will think less of me,
that you’ll laugh,
and your laugh would kill me.

I am afraid that deep-down I am nothing,
that I am just no good…
And that you will see this and reject me.  
So I play my game…
my desperate pretending game…
Walk with a façade of assurance without,
and a trembling child within.

So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I will chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.

I tell you everything that is really nothing…
And I tell you nothing of what is 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 am not saying…
What I’d like to be able to say…
What for survival I need to say…
But what I cannot say.
I don’t like to hide.
I don’t like to play 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—a 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 and uncertainty…
from my lonely prison….
If you choose to.
Please choose to.
Do not pass me by.
I will not make it easy for you. 
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me…
The blinder I may strike back.
It is irrational, but despite what the books may say about man…
I am often 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

Ahhhh, hi mamason--I just found my way back through the re-registration process.  And I have missed you, as well as others--Tremendously!!

As always, your posts enable me to take off my mask and be real.  I am looking at the website again (now that it has a new face) and finding my way through the posting process.  So many choices, like 31 flavors here!!

Greetings everyone,   Skye ....love what you've done with the place!  But now I am confused again, and have to start learning something new (lol  --blog, forum, geez , okay bear with me as I learn the differences   ).

See ya all soon.

Beth.

BETH omg hun i have missed you big time and so happy to see you here!!! Look so forward to chatting with you soon.

ummmm by the  way how did you get that little pompom girl to appear

Very powerful indeed!  We used this 'poem' at the treatment centre where I used to work.  So many of the womyn who came through our doors became masters of disguise.  We became so good at hiding our true feelings, hiding our true selves, that after a while we actually believed it ourselves.  But please, do not be fooled - the ones who seem to have it altogether the most, are more then likely the ones who are hiding deep within themselves.

Miigwetch wendaam Di