Stream of Consciousness: A response to personal knots untangled and Amanda Palmer's "The Art of Asking"

I am closed, but all the people I admire are open.
In my happiest, greatest dreams, I am open.

I am masked and cloaked and closely guarded.
I keep then all out, so why do I so badly want them in, why do I hope they'll let me in?

The things I want most to be, I keep in myself, away from others.
My heart is giving, my soul is tender, but I keep them draped in watchful distrust, not the blackest or heaviest of shrouds, but very interfering in the filtering of light from within and without.
I want to give, but to protect myself from potential harshness from others, I beat them to the punch and make myself feel bad first, even though they had no such intent themselves. I was not raised to be anything but my most authentic, honest self, I was never told that anything about me was anything but beautiful or multifaceted, and none of my friends have really stuck around long enough or been the kind of person to tell me anything of the sort. And yet, here it all is; the shroud, cloak and mask, the stinging barbs of "What you are you should not be" and "Nobody should/could/will ever like or love you".

But it is all lies, the voice that said I need all of this, the need for all of this, this in and of itself.
The Art Of Asking: it's okay to ask, it's okay to be open.
By asking, you are at your most vulnerable, your most earnest and authentic; your most open.
It is great, overflowing, boundless joy, and people respond to that on a very deep level, I respond to that on a very deep level.

Something will probably always be there (though I'm not going to over look the possibility that it won't), the worm-tongue whispering to the light of my being, "Hide. That is the only way to safety. Stay closed." But that voice is wrong; we get from others what we give, and I want the world to be as bright as I sometimes feel always.