Please Understand Me
Nicholas Long, American University, 1988
Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face that I wear.
For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks:A
And all of them are mine.
Pretending is an art that’s second nature to me.
But don’t be fooled.
I may give you the impression that I am secure,
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.
But don’t believe me.
Please.
My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask,
Beneath which lies no smugness, no complacency.
Beneath lies the real me in confusion, in fear, in loneliness.
But I hide all that.
I panic at the thought of my weakness and my fear of being exposed.
That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind—
To shield me from a glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation!
…And if this glance is followed by acceptance—
If it’s followed by love, it 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,
But I don’t tell you this; I do not dare.
I do not dare, because…
I’m afraid that you’ll think less of me, that you’ll laugh…
And your laugh would hurt me…
So I play my game; my desperate pretending game.
And my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that really is 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 rather NOT saying.
I dislike hiding, honestly.
I dislike the superficial game I’m playing – the superficial, phony game.
I‘d really like to be genuine, spontaneous, and me!
But you have got to help!
You’ve got to hold out your hand.
