Once a girl was given a smile
The girl loved her smile
she took it with her everywhere
shared it with everyone who looked her way
she even tucked it in with her at night.
She shared it with her mother when she found her crying
With her friends who stayed at school longer then they should have
The hungry dog she finds in the ally
The scary man who stares at her a bit too long
The cat lady across the street
Her brothers with their broken in shoes
The man on the sidewalk holding a sign
Her Barbies and teddy bears
She loved her smile so much she learned how to smile not with just her Lips but her eyes and voice too.
She smiled with her voice when her father called from “camp” where’d he’d been for some time
She smiled at her bullies when they pushed her down because she knew they didn’t mean it, they were just upset they didn’t have a smile of their own, but that was okay she would just share hers.
She turned her smile into a party trick that she saved for when the room got too loud .
At some point she understood that some people would make the room loud just to see it, but that was okay because it just meant they also didn’t have a smile of their own and she was happy to share.
Soon this young girl becomes a woman and learns that her smile no longer is a gift but a weapon
She uses her smile to defend herself against all the scary things that come her way
When her father never comes home from the hospital
When she learns that alcohol has long term side effects
When the love of her life says it’s not me it’s you
When her test comes back positive
When she gets fired from the high paying job
When no one shows up to her graduation
When she finds out the hero and the nice guy are not always the same person
When she’s referred to as strong and resilient before she understands why
When she doesn’t recognize the crying girl in her reflection
The woman In her starts to think perhaps the smile was never a gift or a weapon or a party trick but a burden that just always felt to heavy to put down
So she tries but her smile remains plastered to her face even when her eyes and voice gave up trying a long time ago .
She tries to set it down only to find
another broken stranger looking for a light,
a light that she knows only her smile can give. So again she shares her crooked smile for no other reason than knowing that a stranger needed a smile and she had one to share.
However this time the stranger smiled back to her she dropped to her knees crying ,
in all the years of sharing her smile this was the first time someone smiled back at her and she was reminded
the gift was never her smile but being someone who was capable of smiling
So the woman rose from her knees and held her head up high and proudly flaunted her smile as she praised the heavens for having a smile to share.