i looked through old pictures yesterday, desperately trying to find the point at which my father stopped showing up in them.
i looked at years of memories printed out and realized that the biggest part of me was missing. so instead of searching for my father in pictures, or rather the lack thereof, i went looking for the year my smile disappeared instead.
i flipped through hundreds of pictures, only to realize that the older i get the less i feel like forcing a smile on my face, when the only things that brought me happiness in my life have been stripped from me.
an unbroken home.
the boy i love so much i cannot seem to breathe sometimes.
a relationship with my mother.
a father who doesn't believe that he was making the right decision when he decided to move thousands of miles away from me.
you see, i spent hours sitting there, flipping through old memories hoping that i would find my father and a smile, or maybe the absence of both, but what i found instead is the realization that the only person that had the power to take my smile was me. i took my smile and buried it deep in those photos because those moments are the moments that i was happy. and why the hell would i want anyone to see me like that now if it wasn't real?