Hi Pat,
Thank you for sharing this with us.  It is beautiful and it is a powerful 
message.  It touched my heart and gave much food for thought.
Huggs and blessings,
Virgie and Hoshi
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pat Ferguson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 9:35 PM
Subject: Please Hear what I'mnot saying


> 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, I wear a thousand masks. Masks that I'm afraid
> to take off, and none of them are me.
>
> Pretending is an art that's second nature to me, but don't be
> fooled, for God's sake, don't be fooled.
> I give you the impression that I am 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, Please!
>
> My surface may be smooth, but my surface is my mask, my varying
> and ever-concealing mask.
>
> Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.  Beneath it dwells the
> real me, in confusion and fear, in aloneness, but I hide this.  I
> don't want anybody to know it.  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 salvation.  And I know
> it, that if it's followed by acceptance, if it is followed by
> love, It's the only thing that can liberate me, from myself, from
> my own self-built prison walls, from the barriers that I so
> pains-takingly 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, I'm afraid to.
> I'm afraid that your glance will not be followed by love.
> I'm afraid that you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh.
> And your laugh would kill me.
> So I play my game, with a facade of assurance without, and a
> trembling child within.
> And so begins the parade of masks, the glittering, but empty
> 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's really nothing, and nothing, of
> what's everything, of what's crying within me.
> So, When I'm going through my routine, please don't be fooled by
> what I'm saying,
> Please listen carefully, and try to hear what I'm not saying, and
> what I'd like to be able to say, what for survival, I need to
> say, but what I can't say.
> Honestly, I dislike the superficial game I'm playing, the
> superficial phony game;
> I'd really like 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 or need.
> 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 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 a 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 prison.
> So do not pass me by.
> Please don't 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 book says about Man, I am
> irrational.
> I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
> But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls.
> In this lies my hope,
> My only hope.
> Please try to beat down these 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.
> I am every man you meet,
> I am every woman you meet.
>
> Author Unknown.