Image in the mirror

        Everyday I see pretty faces, fake smiles and a lot of hurting hearts. I don't need to see the scars on your wrists or the tears rolling down your face to see that us as teens hurt. We go through pain everyday, yet we continue to believe we are alone in a world full of people just trying so hard to find happiness in the littlest of places. We try and try so hard to find a way out of a hole we dug ourselves into. So many teenagers are sad and having panic attacks in their rooms while their parents are watching tv, and how a lot of teenagers had have relatively normal childhoods yet there's this huge boom of depression and ED's and mental disorders and its dumb we turned into a generation labelled as "reckless" but really we are only reckless with ourselves. 

       We never see ourselves at our full potential when we are at our most beautiful moments, when we are slowly falling asleep, curled up in a ball, or when we are laughing with our friends or slowly staring into space. We don't see our own beauty, some people do, but don't you hate it when someone makes a joke about you, about something that you are incredibly insecure about and they don't realize it, but every laugh feels like a stab in your chest, not because you deserved it, but because in that moment you never truly knew how much words could hurt, so you brush it off and let it go and pretend that you never heard a thing. 

Someone asked me today why am I so nice to people who treat me so badly, and I didn't know the answer. Then during class, I looked around after finishing my test and realized why. I looked at the guy who made fun of me for not having a good grade in math, and his head was on the desk and he looked tired. I wondered maybe he had something going on at home keeping him up at night. I looked at the girl who returned my hello's by flipping her hair and twirling her gum around her finger, I know her and her boyfriend broke up, and wondered how hard it is to having to always please people and I know she only acted dumb in class so people would like her. And I thought about the jock in gym class who made fun of me because I wasn't as good as him, he squinted at his paper with a confused face. It must be a lot of work always having practices and games and also trying to study hard and keep your grades up so you can go to a good college. And then there was also the girl who everyone thought was a bitch, but little did she know I saw the scars on her wrists, and also the girl always reading, I wondered what she got from reading all those books or if she's running from something. There's this guy who wears the same shirt and he always wear his shoes that has lots of holes in them because when it rains he complains about having wet socks, and if his parents work hard for him or if they drink a lot. Even the teacher I noticed wasn't wearing her ring today. Maybe she is giving us lots of homework because she wants us to do better then she ever did. The point is, I look at all these people and realize that they have their own troubles and their own demons, and the last thing I want to do is add to them. It's a lot of pressure growing up, and no matter what anyone says none of us have it easy.

       Truth is I think the saddest of people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it feels like to feel absolutely worthless and they don't want anyone else to feel like that.