View source for Poem - Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

==About==

{{DaughterPage|mother=[[Poems]]}}

I discovered this one as part of my [[Atlas Project]] training. Masks are survival apparatus. What we show the world when survival conversations are running us - '''avoiding pain''' (shame), '''being right''' (righteousness), '''being liked''' (people pleasing), '''being in control''' (whip*). Our masks keep our masterpieces hidden.



==Please Hear What I'm Not Saying==


{{Poem_start}}
Don't be fooled by me.<br>
Don't be fooled by the face I wear<br>
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,<br>
masks that I'm afraid to take off,<br>
and none of them is me.<br>


Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,<br>
but don't be fooled,<br>
for God's sake don't be fooled.<br>
I give you the impression that I'm secure,<br>
that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without,<br>
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,<br>
that the water's calm and I'm in command<br>
and that I need no one,<br>
but don't believe me.<br>
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,<br>
ever-varying and ever-concealing.<br>
Beneath lies no complacence.<br>
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.<br>
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.<br>
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.<br>
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,<br>
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,<br>
to help me pretend,<br>
to shield me from the glance that knows.<br>


But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,<br>
and I know it.<br>
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,<br>
if it's followed by love.<br>
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,<br>
from my own self-built prison walls,<br>
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.<br>
It's the only thing that will assure me<br>
of what I can't assure myself,<br>
that I'm really worth something.<br>
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.<br>
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,<br>
will not be followed by love.<br>
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,<br>
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.<br>
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing<br>
and that you will see this and reject me.<br>


So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,<br>
with a facade of assurance without<br>
and a trembling child within.<br>
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,<br>
and my life becomes a front.<br>
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.<br>
I tell you everything that's really nothing,<br>
and nothing of what's everything,<br>
of what's crying within me.<br>
So when I'm going through my routine<br>
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.<br>
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,<br>
what I'd like to be able to say,<br>
what for survival I need to say,<br>
but what I can't say.<br>


I don't like hiding.<br>
I don't like playing superficial phony games.<br>
I want to stop playing them.<br>
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me<br>
but you've got to help me.<br>
You've got to hold out your hand<br>
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.<br>
Only you can wipe away from my eyes<br>
the blank stare of the breathing dead.<br>
Only you can call me into aliveness.<br>
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,<br>
each time you try to understand because you really care,<br>
my heart begins to grow wings--<br>
very small wings,<br>
very feeble wings,<br>
but wings!<br>


With your power to touch me into feeling<br>
you can breathe life into me.<br>
I want you to know that.<br>
I want you to know how important you are to me,<br>
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--<br>
of the person that is me<br>
if you choose to.<br>
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,<br>
you alone can remove my mask,<br>
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,<br>
from my lonely prison,<br>
if you choose to.<br>
Please choose to.<br>


Do not pass me by.<br>
It will not be easy for you.<br>
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.<br>
The nearer you approach to me the blinder I may strike back.<br>
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man<br>
often I am irrational.<br>
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.<br>
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls<br>
and in this lies my hope.<br>
Please try to beat down those walls<br>
with firm hands but with gentle hands<br>
for a child is very sensitive.<br>


Who am I, you may wonder?<br>
I am someone you know very well.<br>
For I am every man you meet<br>
and I am every woman you meet.<br>


-- Charles C. Finn<br>
--September 1966
{{Poem_end}}





==See Also==

* [[Poems]]

[[Category:Personal]]
[[Category:Poems]]