The day I lost my smile

This is a graphic report of a car crash.

That was supposed to end my life.

Told 6 months later from the very eyes and soul that saw it happen.

I step on the gas watching the odometer climb quickly. My heart beating out of chest. Every muscle in my body shaking. The faster the car went the better I felt. Finally I breathe and time freezes. I pull the wheel to the right and everything goes black. My feet leave the floor, and for for a moment I’m suspended in air. Then the noise and the sudden stop. The world began to spin and I stayed motionless but awake. Unable to see or hear or even think as a movie played in my head.

A blonde little girl lay in bed, that’s me. With blonde hair so light it seemed to glow, brown eyes so big I looked like a cartoon. I was 6 years old. The man that was trusted with protecting me lay next to me, his hands on my bare skin. The tears I silently cried pulled around my head. No smile was found in this memory.

A girl with a slender frame, weak from not eating. Leans against a locked wooden door. That’s me as well, only a few years older. I could hear screaming through the door and glass breaking. Mom and dad are fighting again. This time it’s for the last time. I hear a door slam and my mom screams. My door shakes from her hands on the other side. I open it to her looking defeated and angry, her eyes brown eyes yellow and her pale skin red. She grabs my arm and tellls me “if you ever hurt me like this I’ll have no reason to live”. No smile was found in this memory.

A skinny girl with dyed hair wearing a black skirt and platform boots is walking alone on a dark town road. That’s me, I was only 9 years old. The dance I went to for my school ended in blood and betrayal and I had no where to go. My very best friend had told everyone my secret about the man my grandmother married. She told them I wanted it, she told them I lied, she told them all I had it coming. I had to fight to get out of the building and I ran when I saw the lights. I can’t go home to my dads because my stepmother locks the door and I don’t have a key. So I walk alone to the creek and cry in silence till eventually the neighbor finds me and calls my dad. There is no smile found in this memory.

A busy girl covered in scars walks down a city street with 10 of her closest friends all wearing the color red. Yelling and shouting and drinking from a bottle in a brown paper bag. Yup that’s me. I was 13. Someone else’s hat on my head, another’s ring on a chain around my neck, and a knife inside my sneaker. It sounds like fun sure but this memory ends with a gunshot. Myself and only 9 friends running as fast as we could. And the next day at school knowing damn well we could have saved his life. There were no smiles found here.

A young woman now, my look how you’ve grown. Bright red hair and knee high boots. Getting dressed in someone else’s room. Holding a few fifties and a pill bottle. I was fifteen and I was alone. I wanted nothing more to stop the pain. Mom and dad and the man my grandmother married, my friends, myself, I wasn’t safe from anyone and love meant nothing. So I did what I needed for a buzz and a laugh. But there was no smile on my face as I zipped up my jacket.

Happy New Years. 17 years old and blood is pouring from my arms, whiskey on my breath and my mom shouting how could I do this to her. How selfish am I to want to die? How little I respected her for doing this here. How she was so tired of putting up with my issues. My dad pulled up and I sat in the back, counting the mile markers on the highway while he told me this was the last time and how they wouldn’t put up with my temper tantrums anymore. There were no smiles here.

She’s thin, scarred and bruised, and passed out on the front lawn. I was 19. Went to a party the night before. Don’t remember much except finding out my best friend had died. I knew I was drinking and I knew I was the only girl. I knew my friends left me and I knew I screwed up. Alone again. And sick from whatever they put in my drink but I won’t tell a soul what happen because it only causes more pain. And not a smile found in this memory.

Oh look what a beautiful woman, she looks so different now. Her hair is long, her frame is filled in, she so beautiful and smart as she walks across her collage campus... but she’s not smiling and I know why. She’s lonely as hell and pretending to be fine. While all the while she’s dying inside and drowning her demons every night with a man who hits her and calls her names and makes her think she isn’t worth a damn. She’s 22 now but it’s all the same. There is no smile found in this memory.

A baby yay! What a beautiful woman to have a beautiful child. Just a few years later and she’s ready for a family. Oh but that man who said he was in love tried to make her terminate the baby he gave her, told her it wasn’t his mistake and told her to go and he wouldn’t stay. And the next few years all blur together but it happens again with a brand new lover and now there are 2 beautiful children with such a fuck up of a mother. Who cries and hates herself so much although those kids she feeds and clothes and loves and protects and teaches she still can’t seem to find peace in the life she was given. By the end of this memory albeit a few mixed into one I’m 27 and still not smiling.

It’s cold outside, another newyork January and this woman lives in her car. She works and works hard and sees her children every chance she can but the last man to leave marks on her pale skin had taken it all including the two small people she raised with such care and now she’s alone like she never was before. 28 years old. Things are different now but somehow nothing ever seems to change, and I still don’t know love or hope or truth or reason. And there is no smile here

I find myself laying on the cold road staring up at the stars. My jaw it hurts, my head is bloody, my legs and arms shakes and twitch. Finally a light stops off in the distants, “are you ok, can you hear me, what is your name?” As I try to speak I can feel my face swell and my mouth won’t open against the pain. I can taste the blood in my mouth and as I try to sit up the pain in my head throbs.

I’m alive.... but why. But how. And I begin to cry.

I didn’t lose my smile the day my jaw got wired shut. But I found it when the wires came off and the friend of mine who through that all and was there that night took my hand and told me he loved me. He wasn’t angry but scared and reminded me of those two kids who needed me. He held me tightly and let me rest and smiled brightly and I smiled back when those wires came off and the first words I said were I don’t want to die.

It’s not in him that I found hope but it’s in hope that I found what love actually meant. And after 30 years I finally knew what it meant to be safe. And after 30 years I found a smile that was true.