Letters From A School Slut

Truth. Such a funny word. Throughout our lives, people teach us to "tell the truth”. This basic three-word command trumped any other rules the others had to teach us. Since an early age, people ask us to speak the truth—not forgetting to inform us that saying it will ease out almost all of our problems. It is always better to tell the truth, they say. You may or may not speak your mind, but don’t lie! They are people belonging to the category we now know as adults. Adults who have already experienced a childhood as happy and as sad as ours. Adults who boast about their extensive experience to us. Adults who know - or at least, they think they know - the right from the wrong. Adults who believe they’re one step ahead of us in everything. How do these adults, then, forget that the truth is not only the solution to all of our problems, but the root of most of them, too? Seven years ago, when I joined Riviera High, I was a simple girl—someone who believed everything she was taught. However, as time passed, things happened. Incidents that I could rarely ever believe to occur occurred and I found myself wondering about the reality behind all the things I had been told so far. Three years ago when I left Riviera High forever, I realized truth is almost never what meets the eye. People say they're telling the truth, but instead, all that they tell is a well-fabricated lie - a lie so well-fabricated that they forget how to distinguish between the real story and the one that is their own. People tell lies not because they don't want to reveal the truth; they lie because lies are easier. And the easier, the better. Lies keep people away from facing the reality. Lies are beautiful, so beautiful that the people who say them don't look past this beauty. These people know that if ever they do, their hearts might break, their shadows might crumple, their minds might decay. When people hide the truth, they hide a part of themselves that they never want to be found, a part they want to take back to their graves. However, what they fail to understand is that truth can never hide for long. Or so I thought. Until I saw it happen. As clear as my eyes could see, I saw something happen. I saw a lie develop. I saw the rumor spread. I saw people believe. I saw the truth be lost. That's when I understood what millions of people before me had witnessed. I understood the basic lesson all adults have learnt, but they try to hide. I understood that truth doesn't always come out. Sometimes, all it does is disappear, never to be found again. Until someone decides to show it to the world. And that’s exactly what I intend to do now.