The Mask I Wear

Ninguém sabe ao certo quem é o autor deste poema. Muitos se chegaram à frente a reclamarem a autoria, mas nunca ficou provado quem era. É um poema que já conheço há imensos anos e com qual me identifico.

The Mask I Wear

Do not be fooled by me

Do not be fooled by the face I wear

For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks

Masks that I am afraid to take off

And none of them are me.

Pretending is an art that is second nature with me

But do not be fooled,

For God's sake, do not 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 game,

That the water is calm,

And in my command,

And that I need no one.

But do not believe me. Please!

My surface may be smooth but my surface is my mask,

My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.

Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.

Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.

But I hide this.

I do not want anybody to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weaknesses

And fear exposing them.

That is why I frantically create my masks

To hide behind.

They are nonchalant, sophisticated façades

To help me pretend,

To shield me from the glance that knows.

But such glance is precisely my salvation,

My only salvation,

And I know it.

That is, if it is followed by acceptance,

And if it is followed by love.

It is the only thing that can liberate me from myself,

From my own self-built prison walls.

I dislike hiding, honestly.

I dislike the superficial game I am playing,

The superficial phony game.

I would really like to be genuine and me.

But I need your help, your hand to hold

Even thought my masks would tell you otherwise.

That glance from you is the only thing that assures me

Of what I cannot assure myself,

That I am really worth something.

But I do not tell you this.

I do not dare.

I am afraid to.

I am afraid you will think less of me, that you will laugh

And your laugh would kill me.

I am afraid that deep down, I am nothing

That I am just no good

And you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game

With a façade of assurance without

And a trembling child within.

So begins the parade of masks,

The glittering but empty parade of masks,

And my life becomes a front.

I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.

I tell you everything that is nothing

And nothing of what is everything,

Of what is crying within me.

So when I am going through my routine

Do not be fooled by what I am saying

Please listen carefully and try to hear

What I am not saying

Hear what I would like to say

But what I cannot say.

It will not be easy for you,

Long felt inadequacies make my defenses strong.

The nearer you approach me

The blinder I may strike back.

Despite what books say of men, I am irrational;

I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.

You wonder who I am.

You should not

For I am every men

And every women

Who wears a mask.

Don't be fooled by me.

At least not by the face I wear.

(Autor desconhecido)