Smile

Smile

"Smile, it's not so bad," a stranger says to me -
As if he really cared, how happy I might be.

Hoar frost bleached, teeth row on row;
Stark in contrast, to a soul:

Bloody chunks of flesh and gore, virtues hung and pecked like suet.
Good intentions used naively; scavenged upon by my own kind.

My own integrity used against me; strung in line on barbed wire fence.
Trauma strung beyond all sense; just so much dirty laundry.

There is no commiseration; the woman with two kids assures:
The pressure of two little ones, what I'd have given
To have gotten that far, before the terror,
Stopped me cold.

Like that neighborhood kid, knees always skinned.
Over and Over, skinned and boned, buckled, broken.

Odd but true,
Needing this pain,
To become the creator,
I became.
Imagine the torment,
God must have sustained,
To have created,
All of this.

So I smile my smile, of twisted mettle.
Strong with moments of rarest joy.
Seemingly for the pleasure, of the lecherous stranger.
But mostly for myself.

Horrified at my own being.
Now I wonder, how I tire.
My kin, my skin, my nature.

What I share
Are we: am I?

Someone else's:
Barbs, wire