Listen To What I Don't Say....

This is a poem just sent to me by Nanci who has MCS and chronic isolating illness.........

Please Hear What I Am Not Saying

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by this mask that I wear.
For I wear a thousand masks and none of them are really me.
Masks that I'm too afraid to take off,
fearing that you'll get to know me.

Pretending is an art that is second nature to me.
I'm pretending that I am in command and that I need no one.
That I'm cool and that my surface is so smooth and
I cannot be shaken by anything.
I act as if I am in control, but please don't for one moment
be fooled by my surface, that's only my mask.

Beneath this mask lies no smugness, no complacence.
Beneath this mask dwells the real me in confusion, loneliness,
and fear.
But I don't dare tell you that.
I don't dare tell you that this is my mask.

I'm frightened by all the possibilities of my weaknesses
being exposed.
I think about it all the time. Will I look like a fool?
That's why I work frantically to create this mask
to hide behind in my relationship with people.
This nonchalant, sophisticated facade helps me pretend and
shields me from the glance that knows me.

But such a glance is precisely my only salvation.
It's my only salvation if, however, the glance is followed by
acceptance and love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my
own self-built prison...from the barriers that I have so
painstakingly created.
It is only that glance that will assure me of what I cannot
assure in myself and, that is, that I am really worth something.

But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to. I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid that your glance will not be followed by
acceptance and love.
I'm afraid that you'll think less of me...that you'll laugh and
that your laugh would kill me. I'm afraid that deep-down I am
nothing. That I'm just no good
and soon you're going to find out and you'll no longer
love me...that you'll reject me.
So I play my game. My desperate, pretending game with the
facades of assurance from without and that of a trembling
little child from within.
And my life becomes a front.
And I idly chatter to you in suave tones about anything that
really means nothing.

And yet I can never tell about the crying inside of me...
of my greatest hurts...of my deepest fears...my concerns.
I can't tell you that because I am afraid.
So please listen carefully not to what I am saying,
but to what I am not saying.
To what I'd like to be able to say. And for what my very own
survival I need to say.

I dislike this hiding...honestly.
I dislike this phony, superficial game I'm playing.
I really would like to be genuine and spontaneous and me.
But you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand.
You've got to hold out your hand even when it appears to you that
it's the last thing I want from you, because I am going to share a
secret with you about myself; the moment I act like I need you the
least is the moment I need you the most.

The moment I act like I need you the least is the moment I need you
the most.
Don't be fooled by this mask. When you see anger in this mask,
don't be fooled for one second...that's not anger, that's hurt.
The mask of anger is easier to show than the mask of hurt.
And if we make the error of looking at people's masks only to see
anger on their face, we may end up in a confrontation only because we
missed the point.

You have the power to wipe away this blank stare of the "breathing
dead" beneath this mask.
It will not be easy for you.
Long felt hurts make my masks endure.
The nearer you approach me the harder I may strike back.
Irrationally, I fight against the very thing that I cry out for -
my identity.

You may wonder who I am. You shouldn't.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear.
I am someone you know very well.
I am every man and woman and child.

I am you.


"I am wounded, but I am not slain. I shall lay me down and bleed a while, then I shall rise and fight again.What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."