Please Hear What I'm Not Saying
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.
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 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 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.
I panic at the thought of my weakness 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 glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, 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
and that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with 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,
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.
I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing 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 seem 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--an 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,
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 I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than 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.
Charles C. Finn
September 1966
TERCÜMESİ : DOĞAN CÜCELOĞLU
SÖYLEMEDİKLERİMİ İŞİTİN LÜTFEN
Bana aldanmayin!
Yüzüm bir maskedir,
Sizi aldatmasin.
Binlerce maskem var,
Çikarmaya korktugum,
Ve,
Hiçbiri ben degilim...
Olmadigimi göstermek
Ikinci dogam oldu.
"Kendinden emin biri" dersiniz,
Sanki güllük gülistanlik,
Benim için hersey...
Adim güven belirtir, Ve,
Oyunumun adi
"Agirbasliliktir".
Içimde ve disimda denizler sakin,
Herseyin kumandani ben...
Kimseye gereksinme duymayan
Ben...
Fakat, inanmayin bana,
Lütfen...
Her sey dista düzgün ve cilali,
Hiç yipranmayan, her zaman saklayan
O maske!...
Altta ne güven ne de rahatlik...
Altta,
Karisiklik, korku ve yalnizlik içinde bocalayan
Gerçek ben!...
Ama saklarim bu gerçegi savunuculukla...
Kimsenin bilmesini istemem...
Zayif taraflarimi düsündükçe,
Titrer ve sararirim...
Ya baskalari görürse iç dünyami...
Gerçek ben ve yalnizligimi!
Iste,
Maskelerimi onun için takarim...
Onun için arkalarina saklanacak
Maskeler yaratirim...
Onlar,
Gösteriste kullanabilecegim
Parlatilmis yüzlerim.
Beni korur, bakan gözlerden...
Beni oldugum gibi kabul edecek,
Sevecek
Bakislar bulamazsam,
Solacak kuruyacak gerçek ben...
Ve,
Ben bunu biliyorum.
Beni kendi maskelerimden kurtaracak,
Kurdugum hapishaneden kaçiracak,
Diktigim engellerden asiracak,
Beni seven,
Beni anlayan
Bakislar olacak.
Bana,
"Sen degerlisin" diyecek
"Maskesizken daha bir insansin"
"Daha yakinsin,daha bir dostsun"
Diyecek bir bakisa
Beni gören bir bakisa
Muhtacim...
Benim yanima sokulman kolay olmayacaktir!...
Uyaririm seni dost!...
Uzun yillar kendini yetersiz hissetmis ben,
Sana kendini kolay açamayacaktir...
Bütün gücümle tutunacagim maskelerime,
Ne kadar sokulursan yakinima,
O denli siddetli itecegim seni...
Kim oldugumu merak ediyor musun?
Hiç merak etme...
Ben çevrendeki
Her erkek ve kadinim...
Maske takan bir insanim
Charles C.Finn
Eylül 1966
