the smiling others

now that i look back,

i should have known—

way from the start, actually.

-

people in this place—

their smiles—

like stock photography.

like they’d been grown in a lab

under fluorescent light.

people shouldn’t smile

that perfectly.

-

smile, stay awhile,

-

the neighbors came

with jars of relish,

stories about kombucha gods,

and the same lilting laugh—

like a ringtone that got stuck.

I smiled back,

because that’s what you do.

back home we use smiles like prayer beads,

little shields against the day.

but here—

they bloom like fungus.

-

smile, stay awhile,

-

it gets into you,

like dust into lungs.

the tight grin at work meetings

where everyone calls you “Anj”

because “Anjali” sounds

too spiritual before lunch.

-

smile, stay awhile,

-

at the bin men forgetting Tuesday.

at the blackout, the siren,

the kid hit by a bike.

when Mrs. Clarke told me her husband left her

and giggled like it was a prank.

when the baker down the road

cut his thumb off in the slicer

and said “whoopsie!”

the paramedics laughed,

and I laughed too—

I couldn’t help it.

what else do you do?

it’s easier than compassion—

cheaper, too.

-

smile, stay awhile,

-

I’d whisper to myself,

washing blood off my uniform

at the end of shift.

sympathy takes energy,

and laughter’s cheaper fuel.

you can live off it for weeks.

a patient dies,

someone spills tea—

and the same sound comes out of me.

too much like joy,

too little like anything else.

-

smile, stay awhile,

-

through hunger, through rent, through rain.

smile, stay awhile—

it rhymed with “alive”;

it felt like staying sane.

-

there’s this point where absurdity

and despair shake hands—

like that one night,

i looked out the window—

every porch light was a mouth.

they were smiling up at the sky,

faces stretched thin as code.

their laughter was electric.

-

smile, stay awhile,

-

it was so funny

I bent double,

laughing until my chest ached,

until the room spun.

pain folded into parody.

the mantra humming under my skin.

I didn’t speak it—

it spoke me.

-

every morning,

the sun’s on fire.

the world’s still spinning.

and god—

it’s all so funny.

smile, stay awhile.

smile, stay awhile.

smile,

stay awhile.

smile,

stay

awhile.

.