Saturday 20 September 2008

Please Hear What I Am Not Saying

This is ust part of a poem by Charles C. Finn. I've just taken out a bit of it. It's an amazing poem, and something I feel so often. I feel like I'm really struggling at the moment to let the gaurd down and show people my vulnerabilities. The real faces behind the farcade I so often choose to put on. Letting that down is scary. And I've still not quite fathomed out how to do it yet...


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.

Charles C. Finn

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think we all have had this in our lives at some point, and often several times.

You are certainly a heck of a lot better than nothing - and together with many others who have this feeling including me at times - do not give ourselves enough credit.

If we could see through people's masks, I think we would see that all but the most confident and/or shallow are too self critical, and that from the perspective of others, they think a good deal more of us than we do of ourselves.