𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧

Inktober Day 15

Prompt- outpost

You can see me smiling everyday,

It's nothing new, is it?

The corners of my lipgloss tainted plump lips curl up almost automatically, at everything before my brain manages to process any situation and actually make my numb heart feel anything,

"I am ok"

Maybe I am not.

Maybe THAT is ok too.

As long as I smile and say I am fine,

run the bitter taste of the words that now come so easily to my mouth, over and over again,

till I don't have to think about it anymore - the way they burn through my tongue as I lie every moment,

I may actually be fine.

I look into the mirror every morning,

the cracked glass reflecting back the eyes of a stranger I don't know anymore,

Practice smiling

I feel the muscles of my face straining,

Like an elastic band stretched too far,

It feels like it's going to snap anyway,

but for now, the girl with the amber eyes, who traps blizzards underneath,

displays for me the dazzling warmth of the summer sun,

I've trained her well.

I hide my gaunt face within layers of makeup,

You say I look pretty, casually, I don't feel the need to dissect what you mean exactly,

scrutinising every syllable you speak,

Like I did before.

Everyone says it almost everyday.

The "thank you" feels almost natural, except I don't ever mean it, no one can ever know that though.

I am not impolite though, because I always smile at you, at everyone,

when you compliment me,

I just don't understand WHY.

I don't feel anything when you smile at me anymore though,

And that is perfectly ok, since I am fine with it being that way.

The butterflies that once fluttered through my veins, when your eyes met mine, or when you lips grazed over my skin, leaving me breathless,

have settled like lead,

just a heaviness I have rather got accustomed to.

I don't feel the sting in my heart anymore,

when you wrap you arms around her shoulders,

burying your face within her hair,

I being yours that way,

but believe me, I am fine.

You see me smiling everyday.

Because I do smile a lot.

When I saw you with your tongue down her throat, your shirt still crumpled from the night it spent lying on my bedroom floor tangled with my flimsy dress,

you said you didn't want me anymore,

she was the one who made you happy,

And I smiled, "It's ok."

Because I am numb all over.

A stranger to myself.

Crushed into tiny fragments incapable of living anymore.

I see life going on around me.

Falling in love, falling out just as easily,

People selling faith and trust like trinkets on the street along with glimmering pieces of broken hearts.

I watch through my pinhole camera the hues of a thousand colours around me, a stark contrast to the impenetrable cloud of gray and black hanging over me.

I am not an actor in this play anymore.

It's like am waiting at an outpost, waiting for an invitation into my own dreams, my own life.

And maybe, it's fine.

As long as I don't feel anything and keep the corners of my painted lips turned up,

"I'll be ok"

Even if I don't know what that is.

#inktober