I pressed my best tears against the door; it must have been me
slowly opening up to you — you probably took me as your pet,
waiting for the pat of comfort from your hand. I felt the glow of
your heart, resting my head on your chest, that felt like sunlight
cushions.

You asked me so softly, "what's so heavy on your mind, love,"
like a cat seduced by curiosity. Even as I tried to pretend that
everything was okay, it seemed wishful thinking inside of
Aladdin's cave — I caved, telling you, "I can't feel this very
familiar pit in my heart."

Like a fire lit in the dark, between us there's always been this
attractive spark— a man overthinks himself, when it comes to
admitting that he's fallen in love. The words don't slip out so
easily off the tongue; but they wrestle their way around the
closed mouth.

But I've always had my suspicions that you secretly knew;
reading the words in my eyes. And when you replied it back
to me with a smile; I laugh about it now, picturing how silly
we looked, when we both smiled stupid smiles.

The boy I met on the river bank
Told me a truth
Unasked, unruth -

How do you smile
without a fake?
As if,
To cast a fire
And burn on a lake.

There are certain smiles that bend the broken crooked,

certain shades of green light that wilt flowers in the field.

It is an ‘as if autumn walked in with a jug of herbicide

and started perfuming life with death.’

Yes, certain smiles that stand on stilts to prop them up.

Smiles leaving someone so bent that they see nothing

save for dirt staring back at them.  

There are certain smiles that bend the broken crooked.

Smiling for the screen,
a mask I wear.
Inside,
I hide a truth laid bare.
Lost in the tide
of countless eyes,
A crowded world
Blind to my cries.
The real me,
hidden from the frame,
A soul unseen,
though I look the same.