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.
but don't be fooled.
I give you the impressions
that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and
unruffled with me,
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name
and coolness is my game,
that the water's calm and
I'm in command,
and that I need no one.
My surface may seem smooth,
but my surface is my mask,
my ever-varying and
ever-concealing mask.
Beneath dwells the real me
in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.
But I have learned to hide this.
I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my
weakness and fear being exposed.
That's why I frantically create
a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant, sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend.
It's the only thing that can liberate me,
from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers that 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.
I'm afraid your glance will not be
followed by acceptance and love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh,
and your laugh would wound me.
I'm afraid that deep down I'm not much,
and you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game,
my pretending game.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and
try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say, but can't.
Who am I, you may wonder,
I am someone you know very well,
For I am every woman that has
relinquished her child to adoption!
An Adaptation of Charles C. Finn's Work by Bonnie Geddes
