I SMILE TOO WELL

I SMILE TOO WELL A slam poem for those who mastered survival in silence I smile too well— so well you’d think joy lives here, like it pays rent, like it never packs its bags and leaves in the middle of the night. I smile like it’s second nature, like it didn’t take practice, like I didn’t stand in mirrors rehearsing how to look okay when I wasn’t. Because somewhere along the way, I learned that people love easy emotions— the kind that don’t ask questions, the kind that don’t interrupt the mood. So I became that. Convenient. Composed. Carefully edited. I smile in conversations that scrape against my chest, laugh at jokes I don’t have the energy to feel, nod like I’m present when my mind is miles away trying to hold itself together. And you don’t notice— not because you don’t care, but because I don’t let you. I mastered the art of hiding in plain sight. Of saying “I’m fine” with just enough conviction to make it believable. Of carrying storms in a body that only shows sunshine. I smile too well. So well that even I forget what my face looks like when it tells the truth. So well that asking for help feels like breaking character— like stepping off a stage I never agreed to perform on but somehow became known for. Because silence became my survival. It taught me how to swallow feelings whole, how to shrink pain into something manageable, something quiet. But quiet doesn’t mean healed. It just means hidden. And hidden things— they don’t disappear. They wait. They grow in the dark, learning new ways to be felt. So this smile? It’s not fake— it’s just overworked. It’s been carrying more than it was ever meant to hold, stretching across a face that’s tired of pretending everything is okay. I smile too well— but I’m learning how to let it slip. How to let the cracks show without apologizing for them. How to exist without performing peace. Because survival in silence kept me alive— but it was never meant to be my forever.