Stormy: Hey! Guess who's not dead! Ok so had some family issues and I was in the luck of not having internet for a while! So I decided to post this, but my DP story may not be updated for a few more days…

Lyra: so she decided to use this poem, since it was on her laptop. Guess who it is! Kinda easy though… also this story was slightly inspired by masks, the story by irishlovergirl. I always liked this poem for this character.

Stormy: I don't own the characters or the show! I also do not own this poem! Or the song that is playing on my I pod, the sharpest lives!

(^-^)

Don't be fooled by me.

Don't be fooled by the face I wear

For I wear a mask.

I wake up every morning, and put on my mask. I let everyone see the carefree fun side of myself. No one looks deeper than the happy that I reveal. I really am happy, but if you looked deeper, you could see how hollow my smile truly is, and how empty I really am inside.

I wear a thousand masks-

Masks that I'm afraid to take off

And none of them are me.

I change the mask every time someone looks at me. If I think someone is too close to the truth, I put on another hollow shell of what I truly am. If I smile, I'm just covering up tears in the words you said to me. In truth, your words sting. They scar and hurt me. But I'll never tell. I pretend, as long as you don't get hurt, I can pretend I'm ok. I can pretend.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me

But don't be fooled,

For God's sake, don't be fooled.

No one asks questions, and even the smartest person I've ever met can't see through my ploy, my façade. I try to help the only person who would understand me along, I want them to have fun and not to have to where there mask, one which they believe they can't get rid of. I don't want them to go through life like me, all ways hidden behind an empty shell.

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. Please!

Maybe I made my masks to many, too complex. If I ever break character all become concerned and that is not what I want. If I ever act strange or even remotely like myself, people ask questions. Ones which I prefer not to answer, for I have no answer to give. I wish someone would care enough to say something, or to even try to break the surface. And yet no one has. Not one has tried.

My surface may be smooth but my surface is my mask,

My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.

Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.

Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.

But I hide this.

I don't want anybody to know it.

I'm to scared to show who I am, because I'm afraid if I tell someone, even the one most like me, I will be rejected. I don't want to be alone again, not after my life I've lived, alone, scared, hurt, and broken. I had been beaten for several years of my life; I was experimented on, and have been close to death many times. I have the scars to prove it all. I just don't know if there worth sharing, or even if anyone would care.

I panic at the thought of my

Weaknesses

And fear exposing them.

That's why I frantically create my masks

To hide behind.

I don't want anyone to know the pain; I don't want anyone to know the things I've been through, or the things that would bring me down. If the man galtrey came near me again I would become petrified at the thoughts of my five years spent with that god-awful man. He was my god father, he was supposed to protect me but he only brought hurt.

They're nonchalant, sophisticated facades

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.

When I walk down the hall and get a passing glace from the one like me, I know they can tell something is different. That we are alike somehow. And yet they can't figure it out, who I am and inside. That I have a mask, walls to be torn down, that are condemned and ready for demolition. Not yet. And I know I have to let my guard down to be seen, but If let it go, I'll have nothing to hold on to if all goes wrong.

That is, if it's followed by acceptance,

And if it's followed by love.

It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself

From my own self-built prison walls

I dislike hiding, honestly

I dislike the superficial game I'm playing,

The superficial phony game.

I'd really like to be genuine and me.

If someone cared enough, maybe I could be the real me, maybe I could truly be happy and have a smile as real as myself. I could, no I should tell my friends. I should let them see why I am the way I am, why I'm always so lost and seem so dumb. I'm not really, I'm smart and I know it, others do too. I just want others to be carefree for a while, that might be the only reason we have lasted so long, is because we have me, the one who's always confused and makes a good laugh. And yet I still need to be true…

But I need your help, your hand to hold

Even though my masks would tell you otherwise

That glance from you is the only thing that assures me

Of what I can't assure myself,

That I'm really worth something.

You. You are all ways saying things to put me down, yet you are supposed to know my feelings and you have yet to crack the code. I always feel like I'm worth less and that I should not be around. But if a say anything some one will know something, and that I cannot afford to let anyone know. I need help, even though I don't show it I need it, I savior it.

But I don't tell you this.

I don't dare.

I'm afraid to.

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,

that I'm just no good

and you will see this and reject me.

Yet again, I won't say a thing to you, to anyone who wants to know what it is I hide. I don't want to be left alone once more, nor do I want any to worry, I am fine, alone in my hollow space. I have lived like this for so long it's easy to hide my true self behind masks. even if I told you the truth you may still not believe me.

So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game

With a facade of assurance without,

And a trembling child within.

So begins the parade of masks,

The glittering but empty parade of masks,

and my life becomes a front.

I'm scared, and hopeless. It took me a long time to trust, to know that not all people want to hurt me, that not all want me to be silent and still. If I am silent I fear I will be forgotten, if I'm still i fear I may be come stiff and rot away to dust. That if I don't become noticed, I'll be alone once more, and if I was, I may never come back from the brink of despair.

I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.

I tell you everything that's 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

Hear what I'd like to say

but what I can not say.

I speak the truth, and even that has been hard to say. It is hard to say what you have kept hidden for so long. But this is no way to live my life, hiding the truth from myself and others. I need to let it go, the masks and the truth.

It will not be easy for you,

long felt inadequacies make my defenses strong.

The nearer you approach me

the blinder I may strike back.

Despite what books say of men, I am irrational;

I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.

It won't be easy to admit, but if you help me, if you finally see through the walls that I have made we can do it together. You and i. you can let your mask fall away and I can let all of mine go as well. To be honest, I've almost let go of all my masks. Almost. I still hold my happy one, for it is truly the one I wear now. I have one mask now, and it's the only one I need.

you wonder who I am

you shouldn't

for I am everyman

and everywoman

who wears a mask.

Don't be fooled by me.

At least not by the face I wear.

-unknown

Stormy: so… review? Also I wrote this around midnight to about 2'o clock in the morning. I did all the editing this morning, sorry if you don't like it.

Lyra: also it would be awesome if someone else would use this poem and write it about one of the titan characters! :D