I Have to Smile.

I can never let myself forget to smile. Because smiling is how I tell people that I'm OK without them having to ask. How I avoid the pain of telling them I'm allright. The fear that they'll figure it out. So smile, Maja. Smile. Maybe if you smile for long enough, the muscles in your mouth will hurt, and then you'll finally feel something.

My mum. She caught me off guard. She asked me if I was OK. I said yes, but my voice wasn't smiling, she could hear it in my voice, it wasn't smiling, it wasn't and my face wasn't either, and she knew. She noticed. She can't notice! So I made my face smile, and I made my voice smile, and I showed her I was fine. And then I almost wavered at the end, and then I melted back into my room, and then I stopped smiling, and then I was too sad to cry, and then it was now.