The Secrets Of Self Poem by Carey Lenehan

What are the things you cannot know,
the moods and shades I cannot show,
the many nuances of myself,
Stuck dust collecting on the shelf?

The smiles paraded for the world,
those frequent faces I unfurl,
the wrappings of a private me
I do not want the world to see.

Can you know my secret fears,
the shames I've suffered through the years,
the things I am when I'm alone,
safe inside my little home?

How I look when first I wake,
or all the liberties I take,
could you stand me if you knew,
all the dreadful things I do?

I'd love to be an open book,
all before you when you look,
nothing kept in privacy,
A human singularity.

To never have to falsify,
the secrets of the the self I hide,
but let us face reality,
you wouldn't like the real me.

So as always I shall dance,
smiling with resiliance.
Staged in my publicity
Nothing but a mime of me

Confidence and blasphemy,
conceal my actuality,
safe behind a painted face
of dignity and awkward grace.

So thus entrapped I struggle on,
my solitude and darkness one.
Quick to curl inside my shell,
if you try to know me well.

There I shut out all the light,
blinker and conceal my sight,
I might be me, but how to know,
when it's always someone else I show?