Don´t be fooled by me.
Don´t be fooled by the face I wear.
For 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 with me, but don´t be fooled; for God´s sake don´t be fooled.
I give 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´s the water´s calm and I´m in command,
And that I need no one.
But don´t believe me. Please.
My surface may seem smoothy, but my surface is a mask.
Beneath this lies no compliance.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this, I don´t want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of me weakness and fear of being exposed.
That´s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant, sophisticated façade,
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.
This is, if it´s followed by acceptance, if it´s followed by love.
It´s the only thing that will assure me of what I can´t assure myself, that I am worth nothing.
But I don´t tell you this. I don´t care. I´m afraid to.
I´m afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love.
I´m afraid you´ll think less of me, that you´ll laugh at me, and your laugh would kill me.
I´m afraid that deep down I am nothing, at I´m not good, and that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate game.
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´s everything, of what´s crying within me.
So when I´m going through my routine do not be fooled by what I´m saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I´m not saying, what I´d like to be able to say,
What for survival I need to say, but what I can´t say.
