Smile For Your Public

There are times when I worry it’ll fall off. And I clutch it hard with my tongue, clinch with my teeth, growling, willing the smile to stay there. But sometimes it struggles away and all I can do is leave it, broken and splintered, shattered at the side of the road like a car mirror, in a million tiny shiny pieces. I worry that others will turn, smile on their face, and notice what I’m missing. They’ll flip their smile upside down. Social protocol calls for a frown in concern at my predicament, or perhaps in dismay or disgust.

Ravenous for acceptance, I try to form a smile. Lips of satin silk. Teeth made from pieces of broken china white and blue. Bits of a beer bottle green as the clouded sea. A doll’s painted porcelain finger. An ivory whalebone necklace from someone I loved long ago. Fur from the lucky rabbit foot. But the smile is an imposter, a counterfeit, a fake, a façade.

Those who care enough to notice are not easily fooled, yet they speak nothing. How can they? Forming words might tear the fragile paper mache smile plastered on their own face.

I worry that I’ll grow emaciated. Without a smile, I am unable to feed on others welcoming affirmation. One day I’ll do something dreadfully drastic.

Like…

Lurking, lunge, leap.

Lacerate someone’s smile.

Lick clean the blood.

Lay the smile on my own face, smearing blood and bits of flesh in the process. But the smile won’t stick, and try as I might I can’t make it stay, and I’m crying, and the tears mingle with the meaty mess mashed upon my face.

It hasn’t come to that yet. By God’s grace.

But it has come close. The desperation I feel that mutters, still stutters its words, causing me to shudder as each thought putters through my brain.

Lies: That without a smile, I will be disregarded and distrusted and disgraced and disvalued. My value lies in how much fun others have when they are with me. My worth is reflected to me in their own smiles. My smile is my mask I hide behind and the reason others want to be with me.

And though I know these truths to be lies, I cannot lose my smile. Not even let it slip for a second. Constant upkeep, constant wear. Grip it tight, others value it.

 Sometimes, though, it’s so hard to hold onto.