What good is a conclusion
without anyone there to hear it?
Is what I wondered when
I realized I did in fact
love the man who
asked me where
my smile was,
even though I
know I wasn't
supposed to.

I often ask myself
the same question,
strange man,
usually after I see
the sharp corners of
my mouth ache
for their lost soft.
and something foreign
has taken its place.
a slow settle
like the
thick fog
that sweeps
over orca waters,
usually right after
a month's long fight
with a pen or falling
too far from my
blanket of zen.

Maybe I'm not meant
to smile this year.
I am after all happily
engaged to my year of solemn,
another conclusion
I came to on my
road of conclusions.

And yet although
I have no one to
speak to on my
epiphonous road,
these conclusions
do exist and  
will persist,
despite what
the others
might
say.