silk bronze
It’s always there.
That quiet, empty space
between my nose and mouth
too long, like time drawn out
just to remind me
how little fits inside my smile.
They say the face tells stories,
but mine keeps its distance.
A mouth too narrow to sing,
too narrow to cry right,
holding sorrow like a whisper
too tired to be heard.
I watch other mouths
the way they open like windows,
the way joy lives in their corners.
Mine folds in on itself,
a quiet refusal
to ever feel wide enough
for the world.
No one sees it,
not really.
They say, “You look fine.”
But I know how absence can live
in the smallest lines,
how emptiness isn’t always loud.
This face is a quiet apology
I was born with
a shape that never quite fits
the softness I wish I could show.
And every mirror is a memory
of how far my smile has to travel
just to be real.