BrownSuga's Sweet Spot: Please Listen to What I am not saying

Hey MGF readers, tonight I'm posting a piece that someone gave me to read a few months ago. At the time, the power of the piece actually moved me to tears, now I read it and can appreciate what it says to me. I've sent it to friends, not for a reaction but hopefully so it may help in some small way. I hope you enjoy it. ---BrownSuga

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 I’m afraid to take off and none of them are me.

I 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 don’t believe me. Please.

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 being exposed. That’s why I frantically create a mood to hide behind, a nonchalant, sophisticated façade to shield me from the glance that knows. But such a glance is my salvation. And I know it.

It’s the only thing that can assure me of acceptance and love. I’m afraid you’ll think less of me that you’ll laugh. Your laugh would kill me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game, with a façade of assurance without and a trembling child within. And so my life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in the suave surface tones…I tell you everything that’s nothing and nothing of what’s everything---if what’s crying within me. So when I go into my routine do not be fooled by what I’m saying. Please listen carefully to hear what I am not saying.

I dislike the superficial, phony game I’m playing. I’d like to be genuine and spontaneous. You’ve got to hold out your hand even when it seems to be the last thing I seem to want or need. Only you can call me into aliveness. Each time you’re kind, gentle, encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings. Small wings. Very feeble wings.

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. But it will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.

The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back. It is irrational. Despite what the books say, I am irrational. I fight against the very things I cry out for. But I am told that love is stronger than walls, and therein lies my hope. Please try to beat down these firm walls with firm but 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 and every woman you meet.

-Anonymous