Smile

Sweat was dripping down my forehead, a thin layer covering my whole body. I was panting heavily, my hands propped on my knees for support.

My gaze shifted towards the mirror, a disheveled, exhausted figure staring back at me.

A smiling figure.

Wasn't this what I wanted all along? To be a dancer, to express my emotions with and through my body?

Everyone always says that I'm happy all the time, but that is that really the truth? Honestly, I don't know.

When I stare at my own reflection, all I see are my bright eyes and my wide smile. Though, when I looked closer, deeper, I was able to detect a sadness hidden underneath them.

A deep lying sadness, covered by many layers of my happy smile and my contagious laughter.

Is that really me?

A bright person?

Throughout the years, I learned to stay motivated, enthusiastic, since that was me in other's eyes.

I was their hope.

Their only reason to smile.

Though, soon enough, this happiness became a role, a facade, fears and tears only a mere thought I kept on pushing away.

I began to lose myself in the sea of voices whose waves branded and clashed against me, as if they wanted to take me with them; To drag me underneath the water, control me, take my breath away and never let me go. They held me tight in their grasp, choked me, suffocated me. Took my voice away.

Smile.

Who am I?

I don't know.

I lost myself completely.

I became my role, my facade, and the numbness behind it.

Now I'm just a marionette, forced to smile and act like everyone wants it, demands it from me.

A shell without feelings, just empty inside.

Smile.

My voice had been silenced the moment I signed the contract. My smile had been forced onto my face the moment I was sad for the first time.

Don't cry, smile.

“Why are you sad?”

“You should be grateful for where you are now!”

“You're our sunshine, act like it!”

Am I not a human, anymore?

No, I am just a machine.

A product of society, damned to dance with the brightest smile I could muster till I pass out.

And then, when I stand up, I dance again.

Smiling.