smile
You feel like you’re drowning but there’s no one around to hear your cries for help.
You feel like you’re crying, but no tears fall from your face. You continue on with a smile on your face.
You feel your heart shatter, feel it break into shards of glass in your chest. You wonder why. You ask your mom, ask her if something’s wrong with you. Why does it hurt? She smiles at you and says everything will be okay.
The shards cut into you.
It bleeds like a wound does, but it’s inside you. Like the blood you’re losing is filling you up until you’re bursting at the seams, but you can’t describe this feeling. You’re a child. You’ve never heard of anxiety, never fought depression.
When you’re older, when the demons have a name, the glass has pierced every part of your skin. You are scarred now, but it lies beneath the skin, a place where no one can see.
Your mother doesn’t know because she’s got sons. She has sons and a husband who works away from home and they have it worse and if you just keep a smile on your face — if you tell her you’re happy then she’ll believe it and maybe you’ll believe it, too.
But the glass is still digging into you, and everyday it feels like it pierces a part of you that you need. It cuts into you so deep, carves out what could have been the happiest parts of you…
