"Porcelain Smile

I laugh in glass—thin, trembling tones, Each echo carving through my bones. They think it’s joy—how sweet, how kind, But it’s just the rattle of a fractured mind. I speak in jokes to hide the screams, Patch holes with silence, sew my seams. But thread can’t hold when rot’s beneath, My smile’s a mask with broken teeth. The mirror hums my eulogy, A stranger stares, but it’s not me. My eyes are wells that never weep— Even grief got tired and fell asleep. No one saw the cracks appear, The trembling hands, the quiet fear. They called it strength when I withdrew, But ghosts don’t cry—they just fade from view. Now I sit where shadows grow, A hollow heart where warmth won’t go. The world keeps spinning, bright, unaware, While I dissolve into stale, thin air. If you listen close, you’ll hear it start— The faintest shatter of a heart. But don’t you worry, don’t you stare— It’s easy to miss what was never there.