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                  PLEASE HEAR WHAT I'M NOT SAYING                          
                          Author Unknown!                                  
                                                                           
       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 Heaven'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 waters         
       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 is, if it's followed by acceptance, if it is    
       followed by love.                                                   
                                                                           
       It is the only thing that can liberate me, from myself, from my     
       own self-built prison walls, from the barriers that I so pain-      
       stakingly erect.  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.              
                                                                           
       Only you can call me into aliveness. Each time you're kind,         
       and gentle, and encourageing, each time you try and understand      
       because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings,             
       very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings.  With your          
       sensitivity amd sympathy and your power of understanding            
       you can breath life into me. I want you to kow 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.                                                   
                                                                           
       Do not pass me by. It will not be easy for you.  A long             
       conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearter        
       you approach 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        
       love is stronger than strong walls. In this lies my hope.           
       My only hope.                                                       
                                                                           
       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.                 
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