Why am I smiling?
I cut myself on my thigh
I saw the blood rush out and I knew I’d done a terrible thing
So why did I smile?

I dropped to my knees and forced ******* down my throat
I saw this morning’s breakfast come up and land in the toilet bowl
I knew I was damaging my body for good
So why did I smile?

I didn’t eat for two days time
My body ached and my mind ran amok
I knew there would only be more pain
So why did I smile?

I damaged myself
I hurt myself in ways beyond repair
I felt the pain I thought I deserved
Why does this make me smile?

When I lived on Venice Beach
my nickname was “Smiley”
because I smiled at everyone

When I lived in Luxembourg
I was not understood
because I smiled at everyone

When I was a child
my mother made a game of smiling
and when she saw someone unhappy
on the street or in their car
she would smile at them
until they finally smiled back
and only rarely did her efforts fail

I have been considered shallow
by those who never knew me
because I smile at everyone

but those people have no clue
how much inner strength
those smiles represent

Your mother is sad, Adam.
I bumped into her the other day.
She was walking out of the supermarket
With a dozen wine bottles
Inside of a large paper bag.
And she was just a woman
With a smiling face
And a crying heart
Who was never going to see her son
Again.


F.Z.**N

The sky is a bit bluer not.
The tree a bolder green.
Suddenly, the devil's face doesn't look so mean.

Happy girl
Sad girl
Pretty girl
Ugly girl
Smart girl
Dumb girl
Nice girl
Mean girl
Sweet girl
Broken girl
Laughing girl
Crying girl
Smiling girl
Damaged girl
Happy girl
Dead girl

As grim as it may not seem,
Can't you see,
That I'm happy as can be,
Smiling through my teeth...

Don't I look happy,
Going through the day,
Reading books that are sappy,
With a smile that always stays...

Can't you see; the strain,
My gritting teeth,
How my smile stays the same,
And how I stare at my feet...

I may seem as happy as can be,
And you may be fooled,
I guess the real me you don't really see,
If you only see my hiding tool...

To keep the questions away,
And the curious eyes off me,
To keep these suspicions at bay,
So they never truly see...

*...my broken mind that is lonely...

It's taken me a long time to realize
that being happy is a matter of smiling
without having to think about it first
and sometimes
smiling is a matter of doing so because you can

Why do people assume they know what I am feeling?
The only reason I am like this is because I am healing