The Daggers in My Smile

You cannot be woman and weak.

Those are two things that together

spell your undoing.

You cannot tremble when the world burns,

nor hesitate when they demand your softness.

The moment you falter, they will name it fragility—

and fragility, in this world, is a death sentence.

So I must

look like the innocent flower,

petals softened and curled

beneath the touch of a fingertip—

but be the serpent underneath.

Neck reared back and teeth hiding,

ready to sink into trusting flesh.

For the serpent never apologizes for its venom;

it only strikes when the world grows careless.

And I have learned to strike when silence falls.

They call me dangerous for surviving.

They call me cruel for not bleeding on command.

But what they don’t understand

is that I was not born wicked—

I was made this way,

forged by a world that smiled while it carved me hollow.

Few masks exist that I can wear,

and all of them are pink.

They smell of sugar and silence,

painted smiles stitched onto weary skin.

Full of scorpions is my mind,

stingers taut and ready,

restless in the dark between my ribs.

Even my heartbeat sounds like warning drums—

a rhythm that says beware in every pulse.

I once tried to be gentle,

to speak softly and be believed,

but they mistook kindness for compliance

and compassion for surrender.

So now my gentleness hides fangs.

Now, when I smile, I taste iron.

Even my laughter carries daggers.

Every joke, every playful glance,

is measured, sharpened, a calculated weapon.

Because the world will only remember your missteps,

not your mercy.

But, even so,

what’s done cannot be undone.

The ghosts of my choices haunt the corners of my skin.

The blood hasn’t even dried,

and my fingers are itching

to scratch a new surface,

to make the world remember

that softness does not mean safety.

The divots in my arms are red, raised, and angry—

testimony to the battles fought in silence.

Fair is foul and foul is fair.

Words mean nothing in this upside-down,

where blood is guilt-shaped

and sleep is denied.

I can feel the bumps

crawl up my arms,

and I know something wicked this way comes.

But the wicked, perhaps, is only the reflection of truth

that no one dares to face.

I catch my reflection in the mirror.

The face looking back is neither sinner nor saint—

just a woman who has learned

that survival demands transformation.

Hell may be murky,

but blood will have blood,

and the daggers are in my own smile.

I have walked through fire and ice,

through nights that swallowed me whole

and mornings that tried to stitch me back into pieces.

I have carried the weight of silent screams,

the echoes of betrayal, the hollowed laughter

of those who claimed to love me but sharpened the world around me.

Still, I raise my chin,

wear my mask of innocence,

and step into the storm again.

Because to be woman is to be both flower and flame—

the softness that heals and the fire that burns,

the silence that waits and the scream that shatters glass.

Let them whisper madness;

let them name me serpent, witch, or sin.

They forget that even serpents once had wings,

and I have only just begun to remember

how to fly.

And when the world bends its knife toward me,

I will smile, and in that smile,

they will feel the bite they never saw coming.

For I am more than scars, more than silence,

more than the blood they thought could drown me.

I am dagger and blossom,

venom and perfume,

and nothing in this world

will ever teach me to hide again.