DON'T BE FOOLED BY ME

Don't be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a thousand masks, masks that I'm aftraid to take off. And none of them are me. Pretending is an art that is second nature with me, but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled. I give 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 is calm and I am in command, and that I need no one. But don't believe me, please.

My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask. Beneath this lies no complacence. Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in 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 of being exposed. That is why I frantically creat 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 salvation, and I know it. That is if it is followed by acceptance, if it is followed by love. It is the only thing that will assure me of what I cannot assure myself, that I am worth something.

But I do not tell you this, I don't dare. I am afraid to. I am afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love. I am afraid you will think less of me, that you will laugh at me, and your laugh would kill me. I am afraid that deep down I am nothing, that I am no good and that you will see this and reject me. So I play my game, my desperate game, with a facade 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 is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything. Of what is crying within me, so when I am going through my routine do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying, what I would like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I cannot say.

I dislike hiding. Honestly! I dislike the superficial game I am playing. The phony game. I would really like to be genuine and spontaneous, and me, but you have got to help me. You have got to hold out your hand, even when that is the last thing I seem to want. Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of breathing death. Only you can call me into aliveness. Each time you are kind, and gentle, and encouraging, each time you try to understand because y0u really care, my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings. With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding, 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 the creator of the person that is me if you choose to. Please 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 person. Do not pass me by. Please...do not pass me by.

It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach me, the blinder I strike back. I fight against the very thing I cryout for, but I am told that love is stronger than walls, and in this lies my hope. Please try to break 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 know very well. For I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Don says: This is very deep and I don't know if I really understand what the author is trying to say. I will study it and try to find out.