Fear....

Here is something I wrote for a creative writing competition in 12th standard….
It’s a monologue. It portrays the uncertainties of a teenage mind…

Fear

Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by my face for I wear a mask. A mask I’m afraid to take off. I wear a thousand masks and none of them are me. Pretending an art is second nature to me, so don’t be fooled, for god’s sake don’t be fooled. I give you an impression that I am secured, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without.
That confidence is me name and coolness is my game, that the water is calm and I am in command, I need no one. In truth even a small pebble can create ripples in my mind.

Don’t believe me. Please. My surface is a mask, an ever varying and ever concealing mask. Beneath dwells the real me, in confusion, in fear, in pain. But I hide this. I don’t want anyone to know it. I panic the though of my weakness, and I fear being exposed. That’s why I frantically create a mask t 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 and I know it.

That glance, if it is followed by acceptance. It is the only thing that will liberate me from myself. From my own self built prison walls, from the barriers that I have so painstakingly erected. Brick by brick. Every act of cowardice has cemented these walls. It is the only thing that can assure me of what I can’t assure myself, that I am really worth something. But I don’t tell you this I don’t dare. I’m afraid to. I’m afraid that your glance will not be followed by acceptance. I’m afraid that you’ll think less of me, that you’ll laugh, and your laugh would kill me. I’m afraid that deep down inside, I’m nothing, that I’m just no good, and you’ll see this and reject me. The mere thought of someone penetrating my mask sends a shiver down my spine. So I play my game with a façade of assurance without and a trembling child within. And so begins the parade of masks, the glittering but empty parade of masks. And my life becomes a front.

I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talks. I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what’s everything, of what’s crying within me. So when I am talking to you don’t be fooled by what I am saying, but listen to what I am unable to say. I dislike hiding. Honestly, I dislike this superficial game I am playing. This superficial phony game. I’d really like to be genuine, spontaneous me. But you’ve got to help. You alone can break down the walls behind which I tremble. You alone can release me from my shadow world of panic and uncertainty, from my lonely prison. So don’t pass me by. Please. Don’t pass me by. It won’t be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike you back. Its irrational, but despite what they say about man, I’m irrational. I fight against the very thing I cry out for. But I m told that love is stronger than those walls, and in this lies my hope. My only hope. So please try to beat down those walls with firm hand, but with gentle hands. For in there lies a child, and a child is very sensitive.