Warm summer nights
Intended to be surrounded
By fireflies and kisses
Replaced by “hell smiles”.

Those smiles I would give
When the world was bad
But making you mad
Would make it worse.

Living through hell
With a smile on my face
For years on end
Getting comfortable there.

I unpacked my thoughts
With the occasional housewarming gift
Quickly followed by the
Beer trickled fingertips.

If those sticky fingertips
Saw anything but my fake joy
I’d be reminded I was in hell,
So, I smile.

Liquor bottles tipped over
Spit in my face from the sharp
Sound of the start of the word
“*****”.

That’s what I am.
A ***** who smiles through hell.
A ***** who catches your fall,
And keeps you from jail.

Hell smiles.
The one thing that keeps me sane
Through the nights of your terror
Is smiling in my living room of your brain.

Here, bruises are like weeds;
Insignificant, a nuisance.
Up my arms, down my legs,
Another night I smiled in hell.

But I moved out of that living room.
I forgot how to smile in hell.
And you didn’t like that,
So you found someone who could.

Now I’m alone in hell
Forgetting how to leave
And grasping for more
Than hell smiles.