Emotions are weird. How they are expressed can be even stranger. I don’t typically express my emotions visibly. I tend to think through my emotions and feelings. I deconstruct my emotions to the depth of what’s going on internally. I can be highly emotional internally. How it’s expressed is typically through small group conversations or through my writing.
Growing up in a first family at church, a particular piece of writing came about, birth through some of my frustrations.
Contempt
The assumption of this perfect family led to a lot of contempt for our family. To find out people relish in your misery, especially those who say they love and care for you, hurts quite a bit. When you’ve seen your parents pour out so much for others and in their time of need, not many people are there to help. That level of contempt for your parents is passed on to you, just because of association, not complaining. Still, it’s the reality of the situation.
People want to see you fail, fall, and drop your standards. It’s tempting and would be so much easier to shut people up, but is it worth it? The depth of my frustration was expressed in a piece that I wrote in 2012 when I was 19, called façade. It was supposed to be a poem for a creative writing course in college, but it turned more into a rant. The rant masquerades like a poem, so it’s technically a facade as well.
Merriam-Webster defines façade as a “a false, superficial, or artificial appearance or effect”.
Facade
You see me, but I am just an illusion
You believe this is truly me, but what you really see is just fabricated
You see me as kind and compassionate, but I really detest the sight of you
—
There are many of us who fabricate what we want others to see us as
Or perhaps we put on this illusion because we are scared of what we truly are
Our array of emotions and feelings are just fragile pieces of glass
So we put up a façade that we believe is an impenetrable fortress
But that too shatters as easily as glass
—
Who truly knows the real you
You have a façade for your parents
But on the other hand you have one for your friends
And then another for others
You have so many façades that you do not know who is the real you
—
We classify some people as schizophrenic
But we as a people have the same problem, just with better control of it
We criticize people who hold true to their convictions, but do not have any of our own
We are quick to say that someone is fake, but we too are fake of what we portray
Hypocrite, who are you to decide who is fake
—
Not all use a façade to hide behind
But many are guilty of it
Dare to be yourself
Don’t hide behind something as fragile as a façade
It’s just an illusion that you have fabricated
A.J. Ouzts II 