Masks

I was just going through old books and found something I jotted down from an English class back in about 2003 when I was at school.  I just jotted down a shorter version of it, the bits I liked the most.  Apparently the poem I guess you would call it, has been around for over 30 years, the author is unkown… (I think anyway)

"Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a mask, 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 to me.
 
I give you the impression 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 waters calm and cool and i’m in command and that I need no one.
 
My surface may seem cool but my surface is my mask, my ever varying and ever concealing mask. Beneath dwells the real me, in confusion, in fear, in aloneness. But I hide this, I don’t want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed. That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant, sophisticated facade, to help me pretend to shield me from the glaze that knows. 
 
My own self built prison walls, from the barriers I so painstakingly erect. Its the only thing that will assure me of what I really can’t assure myself, that I’m worth something.
 
I’m afraid that deep down I’m nothing, that I’m just no good, and that you will see this and reject this, me.
 
And my life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in the suave lone of surface talk. I tell you everything that’s really nothing, and nothing of whats everything, of what’s crying within me.
 
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls, the nearer you approach me, the harder I strike back. I fight against the very thing I shop for. 

Please be fooled by me. I never want you to see the real me. So pass me by and let me be"

Peace x