My Smile

Trigger warning : Suicide

I smile a lot
I’ve been told I smile a lot
I’ve been told I smile too much
That my smile withdraws me from being an accomplished artist
That it deprives me of being real
That it masks my emotions and hides away my feelings.

But what does feeling feel like?
Does it feel like the red of flushes cheeks
Or the brown of piping hot filter coffee
Does it feel like the yellow of sunflowers facing each other
Or like the purple of 7 hearts that sing together

I’d like to know what it feels like
Because I feel like the black behind eyelids -nothing
The depths of the unending ocean
The impending brushstrokes on an unpainted canvas
The mind wrenching nausea of words that can’t be written
That’s what I feel – nothing

My therapist told me that I’m too rational to feel.
That I pick and prod too much
That I dismantle my problems and tuck them to sleep
In alphabetically organized drawers in my head
That I get rid of all the pieces
That I have nothing left to be felt

And then one day, on an MTC bus
When the driver slams the breaks and my head hits the steel railing on the windows
– That physical pain aches my nerves enough to jerk the entire storage closet “up here”
And all the files and drawers fall “down here”
And I breakdown

But before my heart has had the time to pull it’s legs underneath itself
My brain reports back to duty, 15 minutes late with the lame IT guy excuse
IT WAS A SYSTEM FAILURE
But nothing a reboot can’t fix

That with the inhale of a breath
The sniff of tears

And the resting of the head
The drawers and their files will magically return to their respective positions
Leaving none left to be felt

Sometimes, I feel like I want to cut my hand
Not to die, but to feel the doorway of death under my fingertips
But to compensate for my heart that doesn’t know how to feel
I want to cut my hand to bore through my veins and knock at my heart from the inside with
Hope’s that it might open up?

I feel I smile too much because I haven’t been broken the right way…or is it the wrong way
Or could it be that there is nothing to break, only to be torn and tampered and stepped on
Because only a broken mirror will still reflect, not a massacred one.

At this point, there is no art block coffee can’t put to sleep
There is no heartbreak scotch tape can’t fix
There is no existential crisis whisky can’t drown

Maybe that’s why my art doesn’t have words to speak
Maybe that’s why I try to speak my art through words
Maybe that’s why words and art speak to me
Maybe my smile was never to blame

The views, information, or opinions expressed above are solely those of the author(s) involved and do not necessarily represent those held by India Lost & Found and its creative community.

Hi, I’m Vaishhali Muthuraman …

Vaishhali is an architect who’d rather be known as a writer/designer. She takes to poetry to cook up the secrets of life this world isn’t ready to consume raw. If it were upto her, you’d probably find her nestled up in a corner reading and writing poetry all day with 9 dogs for company. Ay, you know what? You just might someday!