What A Smile Can Be

A smile is the most revealing human facial expression I've ever witnessed. Its a habit of nature, so it always tells a good story.

The widest smiles often tell a different story with the eyes. Their smiles are long, and sometimes you can watch their eyes slowly creep with them, as if between the two a connecting valve is slowly opening. The side of their mouths grow high like an erection with a euphoria dripping down the dimples. Eventually I can't tell if those happy-looking eyes are seeing anything anymore; that smile is preparing to close the eye lids, preparing for a flight to somewhere else. Soon enough they'll shut off completely. Are you dreaming now?

That smile's to be written often and never for yourself. You could write 'confirmation', 'dinner party', 'family photo', a myriad of others on that blank piece of paper. When used, the mouth flexes its guns as long as it can while the eyes freeze in place like a dear in headlights. It's a puppet manikin dancing The Ritual of Memories, to be seen again but never remembered in quite the same way. The iron curtain to be raised once the light enters our lenses. Was it a good one?

Sometimes her smile speaks more than a single story, dependent on which one she hopes to wear that day. Yesterday a faint smile tried to dam all the fluid behind her eyes, a couple of holes channeling salt along her face. I thought she had gone crazy. Today her Cheshire smile bars the prison room of her mouth. Any moment longer and her tongue's time will be up and it'll be the heat on the block again. I can see it in her eyes when she imagines herself moving people and objects like a comedic psychic, her lips creeping to one side. Is he wearing a bulletproof vest?

I've seen him smile with his mouth half open, teeth parted. A blind Beholder awakens in between, squinting lightly at the side of his lips. It's a faint expression, resembling the exact opposite of what is flooding the man's vision. Discovery is spearing a beast in the deepest trench of his heart, spraying its blood out from the man's eyes in triumph. I'm just as stunned as he is; where will he go with all that victory?

A smile is so near to the essence of the human spirit. To create a smile in ourselves is to be happy, which we seek deeply. But to what end? When our smiles are masted forever, where do we as humans go? What is our next plan of action?

Wondering this to myself, I looked over the side of my coffee table and saw you smiling lightly, a glimmer in your eyes as you read a book I didn't recognize. It made me smile.