It’s easy to hide behind a smile,

hooks on each end,

gums and teeth pulled into a fine grin.

 

It’s easier to hide behind a smile,

no one suspects a thing!

Easier to forget and place in the deep depths of my mind,

easier to not touch something so fragile and destructive,

sharp shards barricading the dark essence of my soul...

broken pieces of me don’t know where to go.

 

It’s safer to hide behind a smile,

to reveal no side of me that is weak,

it’s the war that surreptitiously continues on inside of me,

safer than to get bombed with false concern and interrogations...

which carve into me like a knife on skin,

safer than to show how broken my body is or the mental bruises,

like shackles around my mind and limbs.

 

It’s better to hide behind a smile,

better to clean up my own mess and heal my own wounds,

better than your deceitfulness that burns into my skin...

when you touch me I can’t breathe your concern disgusts me,

it’s better for me to stitch my own wounds...

but when your sense of obligation interferes,

they tear the wires that I use.

 

It’s easy to hide behind a smile,

even to lie when I have nothing for show and tell...

when the pain becomes thick and the poison drips,

everyone stay clear in case of contamination...!

easy to turn that frown upside down,

easy to veil the dead that grows inside of me,

than to taint and pollute the atmosphere that surrounds me,

when the smile slips and that depression infects the air...

it’s easy to dissimulate and reiterate with broken voices of

I’m okay and I’m fines,

no one wants to be troubled and turns a blind eye,

when the misery grows cold,

I become stiff for days, weeks, months, on ends…

 

Because it’s harder to hide behind a smile,

the silence of my mind becomes pestilential,

termites eat away of what’s left to call mine,

harder to walk when my body wants to make love to what’s six feet underground,

because when a person falls and no one is around do they dare make a sound?

 

Because it’s easy to hide behind a smile...

no one to poke around...

silence becomes peace...

where I know it’s safe and sound.