Truth and Beauty

I'm done smiling. Why?  

Well, because after spending my teenage years 

perfecting my pout, in my twenties I decided if I ever wanted 

to capture the essence of the girls I admired, you know, 

the ones who carried Holly Hobbie
lunch boxes as second graders,

(while I was sporting a KISS one,
complete with blood dripped thermos)

then I needed to start "turning my frown upside down" and acting like one.

(After all, those Holly Hobbiers always wore smiles 

that perfectly accessorized their Golddigger jeans).

So, I started smiling more.

At first, it wasn't a big deal

because I was already smiling on the inside

(I guess I was just too lazy to ask 

my happiness to manifest itself outside, too).

So I kept doing it.

Kept on a-smilin' in the faces of happiness, adversity, 

misery, surprise, fear, anticipation, confusion:

didn't matter in what direction I was looking,
I smiled at what I saw.

BIG MISTAKE.

All that smiling?  

Well, it may have worked 

to brighten the days of others

but no good deed goes unpunished.

All of the years spent doing this:

have marked me like this:

Stick some Botox in me, I'm done!