Smile, Even If It Hurts
They never asked what it cost to keep my grin so gentle. They just loved that it made their own mess feel smaller.
Nobody likes a mess.
So I learned to be a clean wound.
Pretty grief.
Pain that doesn’t spill into the room.
They love me gentle.
They love me calm.
They love my lips curved up even when the ache splits my gums.
I learned early: a good grin forgives a thousand disappointments.
They won’t look too close if you keep your teeth showing.
So I stitched my mouth into an upward curve,
bit my own bitterness until it tasted sweet enough
to feed back to them.
I smiled through ulcers, panic, betrayal.
Carried a grin so spotless
they called it resilience.
They called it strength.
I called it survival.
But even a smile can rot
when it’s forced to hold too much sorrow.
One day I’ll show them my real mouth:
feral, soft, honest enough to terrify,
a mess big enough to drown every lie they mistook for grace.
They praised my grin like it was a virtue,
a holy thing, a soft promise that no matter what they broke in me,
I’d keep my mouth gentle enough to kiss their guilt away.
They never asked what I buried in my gums to keep them comfortable,
never wondered how much rot a smile can hide if you polish it daily.
They wanted softness they didn’t have to earn,
gentleness that wouldn’t flinch when they fed it lies.
A tidy ache they could touch in passing,
like petting a well-trained wound that wouldn’t dare bite.
So I gave them a clean ruin,
pain pressed into politeness,
grief dressed up in silk and servitude.
I called it survival because the truth would have set me on fire:
if I ever opened my real mouth,
they’d run.
They’d brand me ungrateful, too much, unloveable, unholy,
anything but true.
But I’m tired of dressing my hurt in church clothes,
tired of spooning my bitterness honey just so it won’t burn their tongues.
Let it burn.
Let it ruin the meal.
One day, the grin comes off for good.
One day, they’ll see what grew fangs behind the halo they clapped for.
And when they do, I won’t bow my head.
I won’t apologize for the snarl,
I’ll worship it.
I’ll open my throat wide enough for every buried howl to come crawling out,
dripping, raw, holy in its mess.
That’s my gospel now:
the ruin they thought was gone,
blessed in blood and teeth,
unapologetic,
mine.
One day the grin dies.
One day the mouth shows its true teeth.
When it does, don’t call it broken.
Call it free.
You’re not a subscriber,
you’re a co-conspirator.
This is a room where silence loses every time we open our teeth together.
Stay. Bring your confession.
Bring your version too loud for polite company.
Here, your rage is holy.
Your softness is armed.
Your boundaries are not up for polite debate.
Every poem you read here is a rib torn loose, a page refusing to stay dead.
Soon they’ll bind themselves into a living thing called Shadow Thoughts: The Silence That Kept Me.
Not tidy self-help but a mirror that won’t flinch when you do.
I don’t know when it’ll wear a spine and a barcode.
I don’t care.
It’s alive now.
Feral. Soft. Dripping on your screen whether you’re ready or not.
Stay loud enough to make the polite ones flinch.
Stay honest enough to scare the hush that raised you.
Stay. We’re louder together.
P.S.
If this stirred something in you,
it might speak to someone else too.
Feel free to pass it on.
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