Filming Real Life

by Anne Stockholm
(London, UK)

Sometimes, because of who we are, we hide behind masks..

We select convenient realities..

We whisper when we want to shout..

Hold a fist when we want to hold a hand..

Lie when we want to tell the truth

and lock ourselves inside when we want to knock on someone’s door.

We bend where we were made to break

and we cheat ourselves from given joys of a simple life.

We crawl even if we know how to fly

and we build up walls when we should be breaking them.

We act for everyone else as if we’re all movie stars

and we do it so well that by the time our true faces try to earn some recognition,

no one believes us anymore…

By the time we finally try to be ourselves,

people grant us thoughtlessness..

prejudice..

endless disbelief..

The facade becomes too realistic

and our real lives slowly fade into a script that no one is interested in..

The spotless pretensions become the art that determines our identities,

taking the place of the masterpiece that should have been our imperfections.

We put too much effort into trying

even if we should not even have to..

There is nothing to prove

but that in itself demands to be proven..

We sacrifice bits of our happiness

in place of other people’s cheap satisfaction and acceptance.

We blur the lines that carve our hands and our hearts,

keeping the wolves from tracing our secrets – secrets that we never wanted to keep in the first place.

We smile and keep the cracks in our souls from revelation,

thinking that “perfection is the ticket to the new world.”

We continue to hide the misery that makes us all human

even though we know we can never be god.

In our struggle to find that comfort on level ground

the world is just aching to see that moment when we fall to our knees.

We don’t have to be so afraid.

It’s okay to let go…



If you had the admiration of a thousand people

before you were knocked down,

a million more will respect you

for not being ashamed of it…

Perfection isn’t measured based on how we keep from falling apart.

Rather, it’s by the truth we reveal when it all breaks into a thousand pieces.

When we fail, our masks won’t be able to help us.

Scripts and lighting won’t alter anything

but the cameras will still continue to roll.

Stained and broken

you are suddenly caught in the climax of real life.

The only thing you can ever do

is to make it YOUR masterpiece and yours alone.

At the crack of the ring master’s whip

the show must go on..

“Lights,.. Camera… Action!”