Rose was found crouched in the corner of her bathroom. Locking the door and concealing herself from the rest of the world, Rose became an outsider. Tears dashed down her face, staining her complexion. Her face burned with emotions, cheeks so rosy one might think she was named after them.It was ironic how colorful Rose's face was, as her complexion would soon fade to darkness. Rose’s tears cleansed her. Washed and stripped away any youth she had left inside of her body. As she wept she could feel her creativity and adolescence leaving her with nothing but the cold reality that racked through her body like a bullet through soft flesh. The reality that someone as trustworthy and loving as a parent could turn on her own kin and leave them scarred, leave them alone, leave them without a childhood.

Moments earlier, the eyes that now glisten with tears witnessed a mother of two attempt to take her life and end her discontent with the world. Words sprawled from the mother’s mouth as she ravenously tore apart the feelings of love and compassion she once had for her family. She proceeded to fill her gaping mouth with pills, and anti-depressants... An overdose. Rose caught up in the whirl of pain collapsed and began crying. As her vision blurred full of liquid sadness, she caught the glimpse of two paramedics rushing and and transporting her mother out of her house. Rose then blacked out.


Though it lasted only a moment, the shock and trauma would leave Rose resentful for a lifetime. Once having a bright and promising future ahead of her, Rose now felt as if her world was unraveling. Everything she once held dear to her seemed pointless and unappealing. Not wanting negative attention, Rose concealed her everlasting pain behind the mask of a smile. Seemingly unchanged to the world around her. However, underneath the surface was a new Rose. Without any joy, Rose saw the world for what it was and became a realist.

Rose was soon tormented and bullied for her views on life.When it seemed life couldn’t get any harder for her, it did. By hiding behind her smile and telling the world that everything was fine, no one knew Rose’s pain. And Rose, Seeing the pointlessness and stupidity of her school comrades , began to limit her interactions with her classmates.They labeled her a “freak” , a “nobody” , an “outsider”.

The outsiders in society are shunned away, cast into different realms and forced to hold on to what little voice they have. No one wants to hear them speak, no one wants them to think, and no one wants acknowledge their measly existence. No one wants to acknowledge the outsider, since within the outsider lies the abnormal, the strange, the truth.People hide from the truth hoping to remain ignorant for as long as possible. Ignorance is bliss, and the truth shatters ignorance. Rose was the outsider, the title placing its rein upon her like shackles limiting her every motion. She now knew the truth, so people wished to disregard her existence wherever she went.


The outside plays its role on the observer. Never taking part in interactions with the rest of the world, but standing aside and making opinions that would never be voiced. These opinions would be bottled up and gagged inside Rose’s being, never telling a solitary person the faults with the world, since they would be unable to see them.

The biggest fault Rose found was her schoolmates. She felt they forced themselves into a place where they could never succeed. Rose noticed how they placed themselves in a path of misery. Despite the constant warnings from the previous generations, and countless scientific studies Rose stood idle and witnessed students prove they could never outgrow their adolescence. Boasting about the vast amounts of alcohol they consumed, or idiotic claims of how marijuana is the cure to all cancer, that these behaviors and actions would never lead to drug abuse and addiction. Addictions like the one her own mother had acquired. Their Ignorance certainly was bliss.

Rose watched her classmates in spite and loathing as they would set out to destroy their own lives never answering to the call of reason. Rose, whose own life was destroyed and forced into regression by an outside force, watched her peers disregard any sense of reason and do the same to their own. How could they be so oblivious? Was it not enough that Rose witnessed her own life slip away like sand between her fingers? Did she now have to witness a whole generation do the same as they followed the trends of the media? These questions swirled through Rose’s head every night as she sat up straight in bed. This would continue night after night for many years.

Eventually, Rose came to the conclusion that it didn’t matter what she thought. No one wanted to hear the outsider speak. No one cared enough to even give her the chance to say what was on her mind. Rose knew that the only way to go about fitting in with the rest of the world was to grow accustomed to it. She would keep her thoughts and knowledge to herself, and let her peers do whatever they wanted to without objection. She no longer bothered trying to play the voice of reason. By doing this Rose was able to fit in. Well, that, and transferring to a new school, one where no one knew her story.

Despite now fitting in, those questions still on occasion fill Rose’s head at night. Yet she keeps them contained deep down in the recesses of her mind. Rose is still an outsider when it comes down to it, it’s just now, nobody knows it. The world is full of outsiders just like Rose who are forced to blend in and conceal their true selves. If you take a closer look beneath the surface, you may see them pass by once every now and then.