A toxic place

Where everyone is fake

No matter what you do

You’ll never be good enough.

You won’t get the text back,

But you will get the criticism about the things you lack.

So you paint on the happy face and comeback.

 

Mental health, that must be it!

But what is “it”?

Asking for space, to be left alone,

Yet wanting to be part of a group,

Is too high of a request, for it’s offensive these days.

Mental health...what's that?

Is it something we all lack?   

Now we have the knack

Of being pressured by social media, struggling with getting sleep,

And understanding issues so deep

Forcing us to paint on our happy face.

 

On the weekend we post

About the wonderful things we boast

But on the inside, we are drowning in insecurities

Still trying to paint the happy face.

 

Maybe because dad’s gone.

Mom’s struggling to pay the bills,

Brother’s out taking pills

To avoid the reality.

But we make it okay, because on social media we are fine

Pictures of going out to dine.

Painting on the happy face.

 

Social media demands that we must be okay.

The perfect body, the highest number of followers,

Conforming to others’ expectations

That’s what makes us “okay”

And if we are candid, we are shunned like the plague.

 

The struggle shouldn’t define the person

We all have to struggle from time to time

But when a real face appears on the page

The person is now treated like a “funky disease”.

So we ignore it and our conscience is put at ease.

The person’s just trying to make it through the day,

With the pressure of the peers

Who don’t care to hear,

What the person really has to fear.

 

To not be okay,

Means followers fall away

And the societal pressure rises.

Like high tide, the current pulls us along

Some drowning and others making it just fine

Simply trying to make it to the finish line.

Some lose themselves,

But that doesn’t matter

As long as your popularity grows.

Little does everyone know,

We are all painting on our happy faces.