A formation of ones features to show pleasure, admiration and happiness. It’s something we all do really without thinking too much about it. As a little girl I’ve been told to say “cheese”, “show your teeth”, “be happy”. Happy. That’s what a smile means to us – happiness. A simple smile to show our happiness. But for me my smile is tsunami and of sadness which rises my inner lips up to my dark red cheeks that bleed out with insecurities made to fit others so that they may smile. This sadness is so much greater, so much deeper than happiness alone could ever be. Sadness is a complex emotion it can be shown through tears, through the stillness in silence and through just a simple smile.
Sadness allows us to connect with all our emotions, it’s the gateway for a surreal feeling. Sadness allows us to be happy.
My sadness is my happiness too. In between the tear drops from my eye to my check I fall into a tranquil refuge from the world’s harsh expectations which are a constant lullaby in my ears. Soothing like my mother’s touch yet price my insides into a thousand pieces. Blaring like a siren screaming to be gone. But all the same I love my sadness because without it I would never know what it feels like to be happy. I felt true sadness for the first time when I loved.
Loved so deeply, loved so hard, loved so determinedly
But despite all this I wasn’t loved back. But in that sadness, that very beautiful sadness, my happiness shone so bright and was so much greater, so much stronger because I saw them smile. Their beautiful smile that was engulfed by dimples that plunged so deeply into their face just like the self- hate that pierces into my skin when I see someone else who has everything. I want everything I desire, it’s everything I neeed for me to smile with them again for one last time.
I reminisce on our memories. Our happy memories from my sadness. They told me “forever” with a smile on their face but forever wasn’t meant for me. It was meant for someone else’s smile, someone else’s happiness, not for my sadness. I think back on how they made me smile how it glistened so brightly when I looked into there big brown eyes and how it now holds so many stories, so many feelings so many many things
But at the end of the day it’s just a simple smile. To show your happiness and my sadness.