Something must be truly wrong with this world that we live in for there are so many young faces with saddened eyes. There is a constant smile drawn on their face, and to many it seems genuine… but look, look closer, and you can see that it is just a guise.

It is a façade, a feigned expression of happiness that these people unveil, only to cloak their true emotions. These naïve young people think that they’ve mastered the art of disguising their sadness by putting on that pretty little smile, but little do they know that their eyes give everything away.

Come here and look closer into this little girls’ eyes, my dear, and you will find that there is a storm brewing in them. A storm so strong and accompanied by a whirling hurricane that has the kind of power that can uproot everything that it crosses its path with. Look deeper into those pair of glistening eyes… navigate your way through the twists and turns and you will see a Gladiolus with only one petal hanging loosely from its stem. Admire the last petal of the Gladiolus — admire how that lone petal survived the storm and hurricane. Look at how the sword-shaped petal of this beautiful flower still stands, ready to defend itself from any harm that comes its way.

The Gladiolus is symbolic for strength and just like the flower that is symbolic for strength, she is too. She is strength. She has the strength to protect herself, but she doesn’t know it yet. It is only because of her inner-strength that she has endured the storm even though she has lost parts of herself while fighting it.

But wait, look at the petal now, it is beginning to shake… the lone Gladiolus petal will soon be lost in the whirling hurricane to join its kin. If the petal drops to the ground, she will collapse too. Her inner strength is dwindling. Oh, she has to do something. She has to stop herself from falling to the ground. She has to defend herself; she has to prove to the storm that it does not have the power to uproot her and bring chaos into her life. And, if the stem is uprooted then she will lose her stand in this world.

Look at the storm through her eyes; the storm has gone wild. The hurricane is whirling with an exceeding vigour. I guess it’s just the storm and the hurricane congratulating each other, celebrating each other… after all why wouldn’t they? They had yet another victim to claim.

But wait, the rumbling has stopped, her eyes are clearing up. She didn’t let even one tear leave her eye and now she has bottled them up again. She has bolted her flood doors and now she’s back to being her masked self. There is still a small amount of sadness in her eyes that has betrayed her façade but that is nothing to worry about, for not most of the other humans are programmed to look between the lines.

Watch her now as she puts on a fight to rid herself of the storm that is blurring her vision. Watch her as she struggles without actually showing anyone how much she does. But her eyes — they give it all away. Her lips quiver ever so slightly which makes the smile on her lips shake a little, but that’s it. No more visible motions, no more eyes filled with tears. Her eyes seem distant now, like they’re searching for something extraordinary to happen.

There’s a glimpse of a tiny flame in her eyes, the flame flickers a bit, and then it dies. Her face is pale, her eyes are glassy, she looks almost dead, but she still has that smile on her face. I wish… I wish so much for the others to notice this girl. I want them to look into her eyes and I want them to see what she doesn’t reveal to us. I want them to accept her for who she actually is.

I don’t know why she doesn’t reveal her inner sadness to anyone… I do not know why she fights this battle alone. I guess it’s just the fear that she has of not being accepted in this world filled with egocentric people. Maybe she fears that if she shows her vulnerable self, she will be left all by herself.  I wish I could show to her how wrong her thoughts are. I want to tell her to open up, I want her to bloom like a flower and have a new beginning. I want to tell her that there is nothing wrong with her; that there is nothing wrong in being sad. I want to tell her that she is just another person like me and that her true beauty lies within her eyes, and beneath that plastered smile.

I want to tell her that she is beautiful and that there are many people like her out there, too afraid to show their true selves. And through her, I want to encourage the other people to step out of their shadows and show the world the art they are made up of.