Abused by Love, Young and Old

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.
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 is 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.

But I don’t tell you this. I don’t dare. 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, that I’m just no good,
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play the game, my desperate pretending game,
and 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 idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that’s really nothing,
of what’s crying within me.
So when I’m going through my routine,
do not be fooled by what I’m saying,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can’t say.

I don’t like to hide.
I don’t like to play 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 see 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 --- a 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
and uncertainty, 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 that I cry out for,
But I am told that love is stronger that 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.

This poem for me was one of empowerment. It opened my eyes and let the light start to filter in, ever so carefully, little by little. This poem for the first time in countless years let the tears start to flow and get on a path heading to my own healing. It is a copyrighted poem by Charles C. Finn--it might just reach in and find your own scared inner child within.

The most important thing to remember is HEALING TAKES A LONG, LONG TIME, and a lot of work to heal the child within. Don’t expect a miracle. There is “no magic wand” as my own therapist told me, unfortunately.” So I took steps. Sometimes backwards before I could continue forward again. It was and still is hard work. But I can now deal with my past and understand that it was not my fault. You, too, will cross that bridge, perhaps you’re there now, perhaps this will be your first step. The first step is the hardest. May God Bless and keep you safe during your ordeal.

P.S. It is worth all the inner work within you, and you are worth it! Remember it takes countless steps!