ESC

On the Internet, no one knows who you are. You can pretend to be a rich, privileged kid living in a beautiful suburb whose parents are both lawyers with high-paying jobs, and even though they work a lot of the time, you don't mind because you spend a lot of your time on your state-of-the-art laptop browsing internet forums and pages. No one can tell that you really live in a trailer with your unemployed parents, and you struggle to pay the internet bill yourself because the sound of your secondhand computer is the only thing that can drown out the screams when your father comes home drunk.

You can ask a million people to draw a picture of you, but although they may be perfect physically, there isn't an artist that can truly capture a soul on paper. And if there was, would you dare to look? The dark, twisted parts, dabbed in black, that you try to hide from the light. The hurt in swashes of deep scarlet, the broken parts that sometimes can't be fixed. The truth, in blinding white, the parts you try to deny. Would you look at such a painting?

Does anyone know who you are? Which is more real - the face you wear or the complexity inside - or are you an amalgam of who you really are and what you pretend to be? The face in the mirror is what people see, but what they feel is a different picture. Could you paint your soul? Do you know who you are?

We always search for an escape - to deny the truth - to put on a mask and shield ourselves from the world. We need that ESC button, the pause from reality, our pinky reaching towards the top left of the metaphorical keyboard. We all try to hide, behind designer labels, false bravado, and anonymous internet usernames. Whether it's on the internet, a lawless world where the only pulse is the transfer of information, or in reality, where each beat of your heart reminds you of what lurks beneath your facade, we all strive to hide. To thine own self be untrue.