I present to you an allegory: life as you know it.

I brave my face to the world, but they don't seem to see it.

It's like their own masks make them blind to everything else.

If everyone can only see the inside of their fraudulent visages, why bother with your own?

I look and see all the pretty masks that people put on to hide their beautiful faces.

What a shame the way we distort our concept of beauty so that it is not a measure of the life you've lived but of the decorations you wear.

Please, take your mask off for a second.

Let me look at you and see in your eyes the way your soul drifts when you think.

Let me see the sun rise in your face when you think of someone you love.

Let me see you, a living being, and you shall see me.

You will see the way my eyes catch fire when I see a shelf full of books.

You will learn the determination that pulsates in my hand when I am creating.

You will unveil the loneliness I live in as a plain-faced girl in a world of masquerades.

Everything that I see as a lie makes up the only reality you know.

If only you would take your masks off, you might be brought out of your cave!

An allegory indeed, these lives we live.