If I smiled
With tears strolling a worn trail down the hollows of my cheeks
If I gave you a pathetic, hastily thought out excuse
for my silence standing before you,
In all my misery
would you ever,
even once ask me
"What's wrong?"

And if you asked.
Would I, in all my decaying resiliency,
crash at the feet of your sympathy?
Or perhaps stubborn, as the pride in me so often is,
Would I shrug a response; yet another clumsy,
off topic attempt to prove a feeling of care free and laughter
That so obviously is lacking in the world's atmosphere?

And if I, by the miracle of God,
had convinced you of my good nature.
Would you smile back,
A mixture of pity and anxious curiosity;
strained by the dying knowledge that I refused entrance to my thoughts?
Or more likely--- a true smile
Free of the constraints and bondage
that reflects within my own evenly stitched,
Upward curve of the lips.

And, if your smile had been true,
In the deepest part of my soul
I would shred to the tiniest atom of self- loathing.
As you turn, dragging all that sunshine toward another,
Another woman who had been in the background,
now more clearly focused.
She is amazingly gorgeous, the definition of suitable.
It is her marvelousness that attracts you so.
But I merely see this stunning beauty as a wall.
Opaque and solid, blocking out the view to my sunshine.
The sunshine that a simple sunflower such as I,
could never glow properly without.