A Facade of Perfection

she hides behind a façade of perfection

each photo she uploads has a certain sheen

her profile portrays her laughing, smiling, living

but everything she shows you is not all that it seems

 

for though she has a following of one thousand

and on her pictures she enjoys likes galore

she’ll never admit how much time she has spent

applying the perfect presets so that she may be adored

 

because she knows the techniques, how to lure people in

they scroll through her pictures, double tap for more

so she adds shots daily but she can’t help wondering

“what am i really doing all of this for?”

 

in her pictures, she is dancing, grinning, living

but that is all that she allows her followers to see

after all, they cannot see past her long-sleeved sweater

where the remnants of recent cuts continue to bleed

 

for in real life, she is crying, barely surviving

the pain seeps into her innermost core

of what use are her followers, the ones who like her pictures

if they cannot hear her heart implore?

 

there will come a day when her suffering stops

but so will her feed of photos as well

her heartbeat will drop, her breath will quicken

and everyone she knew will come say farewell

 

her followers will say, “oh but she was so happy”

her passing will throw them all off-kilter

but if only they knew, if only they had asked

they would have known what her life was like with no filter 

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