Backtrack

Retracing my steps,
trying to find what I lost,
or at least how I lost it.

Wandering aimlessly through photographs,
a flash, a smile,
I can always tell my real smile,
it's just a little too wide,
my face stretches to the laughter,
then I remember to tone it down a notch.

My big smile isn't pretty,
my front teeth are too far forward,
it's not sweet or cute or sexy.

Is that what I'm searching for?
My real big smile?
My own sense of beauty?

I'm not gorgeous.
I'm not beautiful.
I'm too fat to be gorgeous.
I'm too loud to be beautiful.
I'm too much.

Too much to handle,
too smart,
too independent,
too outspoken,
too stubborn,
too emotional,
too attached,
too crazy,
too lazy,
too scared to try.

Where did that girl go?
The one I used to be?
The one that was easy to love?

She's gone.
Overwritten by rejection and fear,
and being let down.

That girl used to have poetry read to her by candlelight.
That girl was sung pretty songs.
That girl believed the pretty lies and just wanted more.

That girl believed in forever.
That girl believed in true love conquering all.

Dear Lord, she was dumb.

Blind to reality,
seeing only fantasy,
the dreams she believed would come true.

The unshaking faith in that people are good and kind.
The iron belief in love.

The iron has grown rusty.
Dented and worn from too much life and lies.

I can never be her again.

Sometimes, I wish with all of what's left of my broken heart that I could.