Here is a poem/story/thing I wrote in early high school, as I sat, arranging a collage. Or something. Strangely perceptive and imperceptive at the same time. I am trying to keep up with Tuesday/Thursday posts, and upon realizing it was Thursday night and I had nothing, I cheated and pulled this out of my writing bargain bin. Tell me what you think.

She sits, quietly arranging and rearranging the pictures scattered before her. They remind her of something, though she can’t figure out what. Maybe it’s society and how fake it is. Maybe it’s dreaming and girl power, or perhaps something else…something real. No. That can’t be it. Nothing is real anymore. Nothing that can be captured by scraps of magazines. Yet it still amuses her, making collages of nothing. She has yet to make a collage about herself. She makes statements with them instead. Ads and clippings from stories don’t fit her. Rather, she doesn’t fit into any of the boxes created for her. For a typical teenager. Perhaps she fits into so many that she fits into none. She’s not a hypocrite. She is certainly no stereotype. She’s a mystery. But she doesn’t want to be a mystery anymore. She’s a comprehendible enigma. A comprehendible enigma? Isn’t that hypocrisy? But no.

She wonders what people think of her. Whether she is the enigma she seems and likes to claim to be or if people are more perceptive than she gives them credit for. Maybe people see past her, see who she really is. Can it be? Do people put her into boxes they can understand or are they still mystified by her, or do they just not care? Not mystified. No, that would give her beauty more credit than it deserves.

She supposes by now people can see who she is, who she really is. Either that or they take no notice. They’re very good at hiding. Everyone can hide, not that it’s a good thing. But a true thing, nonetheless. The inevitable mask, carved out from passion, hate, deceit, lies, love, truth, games, favorites, biases, prejudices, first impressions, beauty, hurt all thrown together to create nothing. To create nothing. To create a shield, a piece of armor to protect them from emotion. Everyone’s is unique, and though some may deny ever having a mask, it’s a lie. Lies conceal truth. These deceptions cover the world and leave us with nothing.

That’s what these collages represent: the eternal truth beneath the fabrications of the modern society. Because if you look hard enough at those ads and magazine clippings, at the collages of nothing, you can see everything. You can see truth. And maybe you can even see her.

She sits, quietly arranging and rearranging the pictures scattered before her. They remind her of something, though she can’t figure out what.