“I mean, who doesn’t want to win 2,000 dollars?” freshman Jess Kagan said about the Walgreen’s Expressions Challenge.

The contest is directed towards teens who can enter their work in multimedia, visual arts, or creative writing. “I’ve always loved poetry,” Kagan said.

With determination, she wrote a poem called, Mirror on the Wall. “I took two months to write,” she said, “I was hesitant to enter at first.”

Kagan wrote her poem about how we, ourselves, are the greatest influence. ”I took it from my perspective. Girls look into the mirror and don’t always like what they see,” she said.“Just a little thought of I’m ugly or I’m fat has ended lives of many young teens.”

The media surrounding our daily lives infect our confidence and self-worth. “People aren’t just accepted for who they are, whether it’s their race, their appearance, society separates itself into categories”.

Even more than society, our own selves are the harshest critic. We compare ourselves to an unrealistic perfection only to tear ourselves apart. “We only look at the shinier people in life and think why can’t I be like them?”

However, Kagan’s poem is not just about being broken into pieces. She shows that we have to pick up the pieces and put ourselves back together. “I wanted to write about how to overcome this beast we see in the mirror, the monster that is always with you telling you that you’re ugly, you’re not worth anything”.

“I’ve struggled with self-esteem in the past, all the way through middle school and sometimes elementary school,” Kagan shares her experiences. “Probably the first time I dealt with self-esteem was when I wanted to look like my parents”.

“I’ve always looked different from my mom and dad”, she starts off. “I didn’t know I was adopted until I turned around six years old,” Kagan and her younger brother were adopted from Guatemala at a very young age.

“I have three brothers and three sisters,” Kagan comes from a family of seven kids who are currently split. “I get to see them every other year so it’s nice,” she smiles at the thought of her siblings.

“In Clayton, when my parents, my brother and I walk down the street, people gives us weird looks,” she takes notice of the glances. “I mean I understand. Two white parents raising two brown kids..?” Kagan laughs. “I asked my mother once if she gave birth to me,” she continues, “She didn’t know what to say at first but she told me, ‘You grew in my heart’,” Kagan grins widely.

She expresses appreciation for her parents. “My parents helped me submit my poem and helped me a lot,” she is grateful for the opportunities that were opened to her.

In the future, Kagan wants to take her writing to the next level and be a role model to show more teens that they can overcome self-struggles, just like she did.

“Nobody can make you go away except me, you don’t belong inside me, I’m confident. The shadow in the mirror lingers for a few minutes, I could see tears trickling down the glass, Then he disappears, just like that, without a trace that he was ever there. and the battle is over.” [Jess Kagan’s Mirror on the Wall]