We Are All So Good at Smiling

by Amber McBride

Your words sing To my soul, And my Soul sings back.

We are all so good at smiling— like we invented it.

Smiling was invented To make others comfortable With our discomfort

My point is that a leaf knows it’s important, at all moments of its life even when it is broken. People always forget that a rough day, a bad year— doesn’t equal a bad life.

A life is not Calculated in the moments It is lived, But in the Mistakes that defines it. Because our brains are hardwired To Remember the bad stuff Rather than the good. Good stuff doesn’t harm you And if it does It isn’t good Anymore. Bad stuff needs to Be remembered Because Then it can (hopefully) be avoided In the future.

crafting innocent shadows into toil & trouble.

Determined to protect Itself, My mind finds dangers In whispers, Glances, And the creaking shut of a door.

I’ll ground barefoot & wild in the dirt, & I’ll still hurt at the root of me.

The root Is where the hurting lives. The world sees only flowers Because the petals Are shiny and velvety soft And the world Has no compassion For the toil beneath the soil.

(I am always too late).

Late for every Sparkling joy

maybe I can climb out of hell with stairs crafted from leaves.

Maybe leaves can always be a stairway out of hardship

I also can only assume, by the way you sipped my thoughts like tasty cocoa, you are either intuitive

Thoughts can be sipped from the air But only by those who’ve Trained themselves to taste The flavors of others’ Dissatisfaction and anger. Thoughts are consumed In the sighs and silences Between one heartbreak And the next.

I only said I wanted to die, I didn’t actually try.

I did not really want to die But Death courted me Like I’m It’s mistress. Run to me, he offers in his Crumbling voice. Pain can no longer find you here. But pain is also why I ignore his summons. Pain that others must shoulder If I lay down my burdens.

all the stories are a riddle for something else. Even this. Especially this.

My riddle begins With a Fractured Mind. Pieces of me blow In the winds of Time And circumstance. I am broken But the broken pieces of me Are still (somehow) My whole.

The season is still golden … Whether we splatter sadness on the leaves or not,

We sprinkle sadness Usually Because it comes in soft Like the gentle fall of Rain dotting the pavement For a whisper of A moment Before the pavement sucks it dry. Sadness is absorbed And we are left With only the smell of it On the air.

There is a boy who has lost & found himself so many times, he marks each rebirth with a flower making a garden on his body but he also forgets to water himself.

We nourish ourselves As we were taught By the first gardeners of our soul. Those who make up Our youngest memories. My garden grows Full of weeds and cacti, Thirsty for refreshment Offered sometimes But not with any consistent Design For thriving. Yet I thrive. Because I unlearned Thirst At my first taste Of real, cool, Refreshing Nourishment.

How about a mind plague for humankind? We could call it Clinical Depression.

And god saw his Mind plague And said, “it is good” And depression took root In my garden.

We never say goodbye.

A fitting promise For friends who have The mind plague Called Clinical depression: Never say goodbye.

Black boys don’t get to be sad & feel their feelings.

Don’t the black boys (more than others) Need to feel their feelings The most? Or do they not have time To feel anything Except fear Of the system That systematically Erases them?

I am so tired I have to convince myself to breathe each breath.

Each breath is a battle And I always win.

There are ripples in depression. It’s not all or nothing. It’s not their fault. It’s not. It’s not. My fault.

My fault Is a broken fence that Let’s the monsters in My fault Is a last word Of condemnation. My fault Has the flavor of Banana-less banana bread. My fault Never seems to Find fault With anyone else But me.

I love when people spy on my pain.

In order to spy on pain There has to be visible Pain. Why was my pain Always decimations In the darkness?

I stepped in, tired, not having anywhere else to go. So often there is nowhere else to go.

Wherever I go I’m still with myself. There is no Escaping me. I dream beside myself But in the day I am inside myself. I can never get free.

I tucked myself so far into myself I could not move or breathe.

When I hide Inside Myself, Another me takes up Residence in my life. I fear to hide But can’t stay when darkness comes to consume me. I flee inside and allow the other me to run my life.

trying to manage sadness & dissolve it like sugar in water.

Why does Sadness require managing? Why can’t it Just be felt?

Sorrow left its fingerprints on you. It always does, doesn’t it?

Sorrow’s fingerprints Cover my arms, My neck, my back, My heart. I have bruises That Sorrow gave me But they don’t fade Away Like bruises usually do. Sorrow’s bruises stay, A distant aching, That you no longer Even know that you feel. Until you press it.

living has beaten us both raw.

Living makes Each of us it’s victims.

The past can be fed & made different, gentleness can change things.

The past cannot be changed Though I feed it forever. But I can be changed. I can inhale gentleness And change from a weed Into a flowering forest.

Sorrow doesn’t even have to touch us to hurt us.

It’s a hurt That runs deep. Deeper than oceans. Deeper than empty space. Deeper than the chasm Where my childhood Went to die, But lives on, and on And on Forever. Sorrow never cries But collects our tears as Currency.

We sit in our guilt for a long while

Guilt is always a Sitting place.

You don’t show empathy to those who willfully hurt you.

Empathy has rules To guard it from being over or under-used.

a flood of my tears that for years & years I never let hit the earth.

Sadness cannot be stifled indefinitely. It has wings. It grows them in a cocoon spun of experiences that break it down and transform it. It flies as soon as it’s wings dry from the stifled tears of its cocoon.

the Garden is pounding us with sweetness.

Sweetness is often used as a mode of attack from our abusers.

I see my saddest self watching me & I remember what the pit of Depression feels like.

Depression is a pit So deep and Bottomless That there is no ground On which to be grounded. Sadness encapsulates me and I swim, searching for a surface that always seems only a few meters above.

I start, even if remembering shatters me,

Remembering is the only thing that can ever shatter me.

(at the root of it I was sobbing in every room of my soul).

My soul’s rooms Are full Of the cast-off Versions of me That no longer serve The me that I am Becoming.

when your body forgets how to cry you bleed instead.

Tears are pain’s Way of exiting the body. Un-cried tears Will attack to be Acknowledged.

without my voice— I feel weaponless.

Perhaps they silence you because they know your voice is a powerful weapon. Perhaps they snatch your voice away, or deem it less- important than the others’ because if YOU had a voice, it would blow them all away. Perhaps they are afraid of everything you could say. So they do their ever-best to chase your voice away. Please speak out anyway.

You just have to learn how to come back to yourself even when you can’t explain your pain

Myself is my solitude and safety. I know her pain and every agonizing agony. She needs me most when she cannot find solace. She needs me most when she cannot voice it. Myself is where my home had to be, because I had to become everything I need.

reminding me that words are not the only language.

There is a language of breaths and sighs, of glances, of memories of falling dice. There’s a language of glares and jabs, and winks, and handshakes, and silver hair. There’s a language of energy filling the air. I speak the language babes learn with their very first breath: the language of how to avoid death.

I am always paying attention.

I may look preoccupied because I have perfected that look but I am always paying attention. When your stance shifts or your exhale is heavy, I notice every alteration. I have a part of me that makes a running summation of every conversation and situation. I’m in a rotation of quick glances and side-eye, of elation at being overlooked. Again. I am never as oblivious as I seem. I am only ever at parade rest.

Not today, Sorrow. Not tomorrow. Not ever again.

You don’t get to win At my expense.

you lived, you are (both) already bravery itself.

Every day I choose to live is another day depression doesn’t win. Another day my survival trophy reads: 100%

hope growing thick

Hope grows as little tendrils but is stronger than the rushing sea. It helps me be free. It helps me believe.

I didn’t understand then. Sorrow is no one’s fault,

We blame ourselves for feeling the feelings that must be felt.

Do you understand now (reader)? There is someone out there rooting for you. You are not alone, in any Forest. You there, hello, bonjour, hola— we are rooting, cheering for you to live & thrive.

A world of hopes want me to keep on succeeding.