Smiles

She smiles while she’s talking. She smiles with her eyes.
And yet, for all her smiles, her smiles are still lies.

She’s cutting through the ribbon, the grand op’ning of her veins.
She’s trying to remember the Greater Crimson Stains.
She’s cutting in the hopes that like the humors of years old
She can let flow the blood of vengeance, for you are yet her goad.

You, who love her dearly, how could you do this thing?
She’s but a hurting child, and you the venom’s sting.
She’s looking for Redemption, for a care beyond the grave,
And yet you, you never mention that there’s hope within your rave.
So she smiles while she slices a scar across her heart.
The chasm opens wide: Flaming arrows ... Cupid’s dart.

She’s disconnected cause/effect. She missed your lesson taught.
Could you blame her, now I wonder, if this was also not your lot?
For whom has more to lose than the one who’s lost before?
Or is it that your piety demands her breaking on the shore?
And so I pose the question, like a heathen seeking grace:
Is virginity so precious that your daughter you’d disgrace?
So a boy defiled her childhood, but you have raped her soul,
So she smiles while she’s cutting; this child is not whole.

You, who watch her closely, what do you hope to do?
The past can’t be rewritten; it’s the future we look to.
Her pain is not from falling, but her trampling in the mud.
You drown her in your tears and grief; a petty, pointless flood.
So remove her from the guilty--these offenders of her hope--
But extend to her forgiveness, not the noose, the hangman’s rope.

She’s cutting through the icebergs forming o’er her mind.
She’s trying to rekindle the fires meanings find.
She’s cutting in the hopes that one day it will be true:
She can find love and acceptance from you and You and you.

She smiles while she’s crying. She smiles, eyes bone dry.
And yet, through all her smiles, her smile is her cry.