Oh look!
There she is. The girl with the most precious smile. The girl with the softest skin. The girl with the most ferocious laughter. The girl that is so stunning, so exquisite, because she is her own definition of beautiful. Her smile is so precious. Her smile is so perfect. But do you know why her smile is so perfect? It’s because practice makes perfect. She practices smiling to cover up the things that would scare people away. She practices smiling to cover up the fact that she feels everything to extremes; that’s overplay. She practices smiling to cover up the fact that the inside of her mind looks more and more like the aftermath of a tsunami everyday. Ask her not to smile. Man! That’ll be the day! The people that shame her for holding her chin high, for pushing her shoulders back to exert her confidence, for showing off her new body that she is so proud of, don’t know what’s actually going on behind that glimmering smile of hers. If those people who indignitize her would look at her eyes, and not the places below her belt that everyone else admired, they would be able to hear the ideas too complex for them to understand, pour right out of them. She would say, “Why do you continuously ridicule me for trying to meet your standards? I tried being confident, but now you just call me arrogant. I tried being sure footed, but you just make me question whether I’m worthy of the path ending in success. I tried being me and that wasn’t good enough either. So what does a girl have to do to make you realize she is breaking inside?” Her smile is so inspiring, they say. Her smile is so intriguing, they say. But she practices smiling to cover up how uncomfortable the stares from men of all ages make her. She practices smiling to cover up how much she actually hates herself and wishes she weren’t constantly being the subject to an order. She practices smiling because she has gotten used to standing in front of a crowd and seeing the sentiment in everyone’s eyes as she speaks because she knows that she has the chance to make a difference and tell them all, “You don’t have to hide for forever.” Her smile is a natural phenomenon, the northern lights, crepuscular rays, a rainbow eucalyptus tree. Her smile is the eighth wonder of the world. She practices smiling to enjoy every moment no matter how atrocious. She practices smiling to find the good in every person she meets no matter how traumatizing or infectious. She practices smiling to conceal her copious, culminating, cautions of what fate holds for her growing faith. Her smile is thunderous to those who listen. Her smile is carrying burdens within the crevices of its lips. Her best friend can hear her say, “Mother, I know you are tired of fighting, but I want to help you get through this. If only you would pay attention to me. Mom, why don’t you pay attention to me? Father, you may be hurting, but sometimes I think you deserve it. It was ages ago, but I remember what you did to me. God, I know you hear me, so please let these people see each other in the light that I see people in. God, why do people not look past the surface anymore?” Her smile, her performance, is stage ready. Her smile screams loud enough so that the stars fall around her in meteoroid showers. Her smile is the shield that submerges her whole being, mind, body, and spirit, so that the piping hot rock and dust ricochet off of her, just as the critics' minuscule opinions do. She smiles so often that the audiences give her performance a five star rating, but what the critics need to see most is this peek behind the curtain.
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Poetry Editor:Emilie Rattner Archives
May 2021
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