That fake forced smile, so much harder to crack today, sits on your face as if drawn by a carnival face painter. It seems the weight of the world sits on your shoulders; you want to do as Ayn suggested Atlas might do and shrug. The words don’t come easy but you string together false feelings, greetings, forged hellos, and jesters of alliance that have the sincerity of your televised evangelical preacher demanding dollars for your soul’s security. You walk among your peers eyes forward, hiding emotion and grief. Trembling inside you make each step carefully as if gravity itself is God pulling you to your knees.
You try to remember your loves smile as you kissed her good bye. She’s off to start her day. The world at her feet she strides with unfathomable opportunities for her young life. She is the reason you walk and breathe amongst this empty humanity. But even her striking smile, brilliant, brown, glitter laden eyes, and young shimmering skin can’t pull you from this overwhelming failure. Boxed in now, feelings, kind words and well wishers don’t penetrate. The light at the end dims and reason takes foot. Nothing makes sense.
The phone rings, your plastic smile is turned back on, you’ve got a machine to grease.