Too close

Ok, I have a history test tomorrow consisting of five long south east asia lecture notes but I have barely started, being the realist I am I know it's impossible anyway. And I still have not complete that Lear essay. Despite that, I went blog surfing and something posted by Sylvia made me dropped my jaw too.

Charles C. FinnSeptember 1966::

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

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm 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.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
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 hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers 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.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
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
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,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want 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.
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 power to touch me into feeling
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--an honest-to-God creator-- of the person that is me
if you 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,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.
Do not 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 books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those 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.
For I am every man you meet and
I am every woman you meet.

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Hmmm....Cant help but cringe after reading this. This is just too close to the heart man. It was as if someone broke into my inner realm of sub consciousness and formed it into a poem. Just too freaky. Sometimes I really cant see any meaning to the life I'm living. Everyday is just the same. I think that I would have died a long time ago if not for my friends. Like seriously. You people probably dont know how much your little gestures, understandings, counsellings mean to me. But I do. And I still dont know how to thank you all. Haha.XD

And you come to my mind. I dont know if you read my blog but I really hope that things are going alright for you. This poem really reminds me of the conversations we had. Perhaps that was what come out for your practical criticism paper? Anyway, take care.