I don't need to know your secret
I don't need to know your vices
I don't need to know your past
All I need is to be needed.


Monday through Friday, the world's the same
Busting their tails, and making a name
Go to work, go to school, don't play the fool
Pleasure's the payoff and the money's the tool.
Sweating all week for a dollar's gain
Living for the weekend to drown the pain.
Life is more than what it seems
Open your eyes and start to dream


Stranger than fiction
Life is a mystery
Nothing is turning, turning out
The way that I planned it to be.


If you'd like to find out what's behind these cold eyes
You'll just have to claw your way through this disguise.


I stand accused before you
I have no tears to cry
And you will never break me
Until the day I die.


How can you censor my thoughts?
What is right, what is not?
How is it you decide,
What I should feel inside?


I'm only laughing on the outside
My smile is only skin deep
If you could see inside I'm only crying
You might join me for a weep.


The world is full of Kings and Queens,
Who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.


You are free before the sun of the day, and free before the stars of the night;
And you are free when there is no sun and no moon and no star.
You are even free when you close your eyes upon all there is.
But you are a slave to him whom you love because you love him,
And a slave to him who loves you because he loves you.


Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss,
It had to be and the reason is this,
Could it be true, someone like you
Could love me, love me?


I swore to myself
It wouldn't happen again.
I vowed to myself
That this was the end.
The end of this longing,
This yearning so strong.
I said I was over you,
But oh I was wrong.
Now here it is again,
Quite awhile later.
And my love for you
Is now even greater.
I spend all my time
Thinking of you,
I'm in love with you again
And there's nothing I can do.


Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear.
For I wear a thousand masks, masks that I am afraid to take off and none of them are 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 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 are calm and I am 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,
ever-varying and ever-concealing
'Neath this lies no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know.
I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed.
That is 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 is followed by acceptance, if it is followed by love.
It is the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself,
that I am worth something.
But, I don't tell you this. I don't dare. I am afraid to.
I am afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love.
I am afraid you will think less of me, that you will laugh at me,
and that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate game,
with a facade of assurance without, and a trembling child within.
And so begins the 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 is really 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.
What I would like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say, but I can't say.
I dislike hiding, Honestly!
I dislike the superficial game I am playing, the phony game.
I would really like to be genuine and spontaneous, and me,
but you have got to help me. You have got to hold out your hand,
even when that is the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes that blank stare of breathing death.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you try to understand and because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings,
but wings.
With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding,
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 the creator of the person that is me if you choose to.
Please 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 shadowworld of panic and uncertainty;
From my lonely person.
Do not pass me by.
Please. . . do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you;
a long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach me, the blinder I strike back.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for. But I am told that
love is stronger than 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.