Filter

Cover me up, hide my flaws, hide the truth burning behind

my green pools of fire

eyes.

Eyes

that don’t crease when I smile.

My anatomy teacher once taught us

that it isn’t a real smile

Unless your eyes crease.

Who am I?

The infamous question that

Digs into my skin

Burrows deep in my heart,

Burns scars onto my soul. 

 

Filter

A perfect disguise for the perfect fear that we all feel.

Fear of each other, fear of the future, but mostly fear of ourselves.

Fear that we are not good enough,

Fear that everyone is better than us,

Fear of being Judged, Misunderstood, Hurt.

We filter our photographs, our posts, our thoughts, our reality.

We filter in fear of someone

or everyone

realizing who we truly are.

Fear that tangles, strangles, suffocates

my every thought and word and action.

A filter is a two way mirror— I can see out

But you cannot see in.

A filter is a disguise, a trick, a defense

from the world and from the truth.

 

Filter,

Fix my face, fix my body, fix myself and fix my life.

Filter, filter, filter

turns into

hide, cover, pretend

Pretending turns into forgetting

Who I am

Who I want to be.

I am a product of the fear that attacks me every morning

Before I take my medicine

and every night

Before I shut my eyes and decide the day is over.

I am afraid of the boy with the blue eyes, the blonde hair, and the innocent smile.

He loved me and I could not love him back.

 

Filter

Filter my love, my thoughts, my emotions

For fear of the boy with the blue eyes realizing who I am and, even worse

Who I am not.

I am

Crazy, bipolar, depressed

Take these pills

Talk to this therapist

Control your breathing, control your emotions, control your anxiety.

Anxiety

Chokes, drowns, rips apart everything you thought you once were.

Once you were you, you were the girl with a fire burning behind your eyes

A fire that could not be stomped out, washed out, or weakened

Now you are just a filter

Hiding your flaws, your truth, your heart.

Heartless, cold, apathetic.

They don’t see past the filter that protects you.

It is your shield, your wall

 

Tear me down, I scream

Rip me apart, I cry

for someone to burn my walls down

Remove this FILTER

This DISEASE

of make-believe, fake flawlessness.

 

I am not flawless,

I am

the left eye that is smaller than the right

the strangely shaped belly button

the insatiable craving for late night cereal

the 32 A and the size 6

the depression, the mood swings, the anxiety

the girl with the fire burning behind her green eyes.

 

Remove my filter

and you will see

I am my flaws

 

My flaws are me.