Secret Smile.
Behind Each Smile.
I used to think that everyone had a secret behind their smile. A somewhat strange idea for a six year old, but nonetheless it was something I pondered upon every day. Secrets behind smiles. For every time I'd asked someone why they were smiling, they'd simply say it was "nothing". What was this "nothing", though? It couldn't possibly have been just "nothing".
It was a secret.
A secret that, for no real reason at all, they just wouldn't tell others. Why? Maybe it'd take too long to explain. Maybe it'd be pointless to explain. Maybe it was something only they could understand; something no one else would. Maybe it was something they preferred to keep to themselves. A secret behind their smile.
Five years later, I swore never to smile again. What other reaction would you expect from an 11 year-old who'd just lost her parents in a car accident, without having the chance to say a simple "goodbye"? I vowed never to smile again, because smiles represented happiness, and well... I never wanted my parents to think I was happy without them.
Six more years down the road, and I'm the quiet girl at the back of the class. The one who gets bullied by all the jocks and cheerleaders; the only one taking notes in class while the rest are passing notes and napping and childishly throwing paper airplanes at each other; the one whose name no one knows.
Sad eyes and a tear-streaked face, I run home and dig deep into all the trash I swore to clean up one spring...
And I find it.
Pictures of you, pictures of me.
Hung up on your wall for the world to see.
Pictures of you, pictures of me.
Remind us all of what we used to be.
And then I realize the secret behind a smile. It isn't sadism or ignorance or adolescence or stupidity or any of those things.
In the photos in that old, dusty album that made me smile again...
I was smiling.
Not for any real reason, though, but just because I knew I was blessed. I had a home I belonged to, I had friends who had my back, I had a family I loved...
I was innocent. I was happy; happy with my life.
So even if I wasn't the luckiest girl on the planet...
I was blessed. I am blessed.
It was a secret.
A secret that, for no real reason at all, they just wouldn't tell others. Why? Maybe it'd take too long to explain. Maybe it'd be pointless to explain. Maybe it was something only they could understand; something no one else would. Maybe it was something they preferred to keep to themselves. A secret behind their smile.
Five years later, I swore never to smile again. What other reaction would you expect from an 11 year-old who'd just lost her parents in a car accident, without having the chance to say a simple "goodbye"? I vowed never to smile again, because smiles represented happiness, and well... I never wanted my parents to think I was happy without them.
Six more years down the road, and I'm the quiet girl at the back of the class. The one who gets bullied by all the jocks and cheerleaders; the only one taking notes in class while the rest are passing notes and napping and childishly throwing paper airplanes at each other; the one whose name no one knows.
Sad eyes and a tear-streaked face, I run home and dig deep into all the trash I swore to clean up one spring...
And I find it.
Pictures of you, pictures of me.
Hung up on your wall for the world to see.
Pictures of you, pictures of me.
Remind us all of what we used to be.
And then I realize the secret behind a smile. It isn't sadism or ignorance or adolescence or stupidity or any of those things.
In the photos in that old, dusty album that made me smile again...
I was smiling.
Not for any real reason, though, but just because I knew I was blessed. I had a home I belonged to, I had friends who had my back, I had a family I loved...
I was innocent. I was happy; happy with my life.
So even if I wasn't the luckiest girl on the planet...
I was blessed. I am blessed.
♠ ♠ ♠
Wrote this in ten minutes, and only minor grammatical, punctuation, etc edits, as according to the contest's requirements.So it's pretty much just 10 minutes of crap. :O