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
This poem has often been signed as "anonymous". We would like to thank Monica for letting us know about the author, Charles C. Finn. We looked him up, and his site is " Poetry by Charles C Finn" at http://www.poetrybycharlescfinn.com The text posted above is the original, complete poem.
Here's an excerpt from the author's site:
Please Hear What I'm Not
Saying
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