(no subject)
I WEAR
A
THOUSAND MASKS
by Unsigned
I hope you won't be fooled by me, for I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks that I am afraid to take off - and one of them is me.
I'm likely to give you the impression that I'm secure, 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 I hope you won't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth - beneath I dwell in confusion, in fear, in aloneness. But I hide this. I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed. That's why I frantically create a mood to hide behind, a nonchalant sophisticated facade to shield me from your understanding. But such understanding is my salvation - and I know it!
If I don't keep the mask in front of myself, I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me. So I play the game, my desperate pretending game, with an air of assurance without, and a trembling fear within. And so my life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in suave surface tones - I tell you everything that's nothing, and nothing of what's everything, of what's crying within me. So when I go into my routine, I hope you won't be fooled by what I'm saying. I hope you listen carefully to what I'm NOT saying.
I dislike the superficial, phony game I'm playing. I want your help in doing this. I want you to risk approaching me, even when that's the last thing I seem to want, or need. I want this from you so that I can be alive. Each time you're kind, and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my courage to risk sharing myself with you increases.
I want you to know how important you are to me, how you can be a creator of the person that IS me if you choose. But it will not be easy for you. A long conviction of my worthlessness forces me to maintain my distance.
The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back. It's self defeating, but at the time, it seems the safest thing to do. I fight against the very things that I cry out for. But I am told that empathy is stronger than walls, and therein lies my hope. I desperately want you to understand me in spite of my distancing tactics.
Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
I am every man and woman you meet.