Inspired by J. Cole's song Crooked Smile ft. TLC
My life has been as crooked as my smile. Something to straighten out before I hit the age of 30, if I ever did.
Something I've always tried to hide behind the idea of "white veneers", but God said, "Nope! Not on my dime.". So I lowered my head and tucked my lips.
I closed my grin and replaced it with a grimace reflecting the discomfort I felt remaining in this society as is; otherwise, not at all.
So if I ever made it to the age of 30, I wanted to fix it all by then. The discomfort in hiding myself away from the world under fake tans and makeup felt like the disconnect holding me back from fulfilling an authentic life.
How interesting how it all folds together like that. I grew isolated in fear of making a mistake that would crumble the dreams and fantasies I disassociated into as a child to bleed into the hope that I could change the trajectory.
As my smile diminished, so did my sense of purpose... so did myself.
Yet, I couldn't hide it enough. With each distancing attempt I made I needed more to live the lies I was making the manipulated meaning of my fake life out of. All to blend in with those around me who grew up with pretty, perfect, white smiles with the ability to afford others to fix them for them if they ever got chipped. Each time mine did, the chips remained due to the crooked life that was obtained by the choices of generations...
Or was it me fighting the prophecy of who I was authentically born to be?
Running so far from the answer that kept trying to speak to me. Right in front of me.
And I just kept trying to escape it. All it was trying to do was nurture my growth and fate; yet, I ran from the faith it needed to live my life happily, with or without a crooked smile.
My crooked smile was my lifestream. Each time I ran away from it, I got more lost. I chose to remain lost for a long, long time. I chose to build a shelter wherever I ran off with the thickest walls so nobody could break in. I confused control with the certainty of my crooked smile becoming straight, pearly, and white.
Sacrificing my own smile became the inflexible remedy. The light it brought me once, now dimmed and replaced with the burden of forcing things to conform to the way others got their perfect smiles.
But they were hiding, too. I just didn't realize it. Nobody said anything.
They saw my crooked smile as a threat because that's not what gives us power in life. Fake smiles and photoshopping the authenticity, I found, rob humans of the fulfillment and opportunities to meet our purpose. Life gifts us with the chance to let go each day and surrender to the crooked paths of our own life stories.
I came from poverty. I came from a line of heavy addiction that seeped into the walls of my home and the cracks in my soul. I grew up isolated and bullied because others wanted something I had, yet all I could see was the lucky wealth that bought all of their talents, sensations, bodies, and faces. All I focused on were the close, cars, and fortunes I never had.
As child, before my smile grew as crooked as it is now, I dreamt of a live of security, safety, and love.
I just wanted to feel loved. Once I tried to force it during adolescents, I allowed my love's first experiences to be abuse.
So, as I meet myself now; strong, resilient, organically unashamedly the resemblance of resilience I was forced to build and use on my own as a means of survival. Or else, I was surely going to die. If not my body, my soul.
I almost let that happen recently, but I allowed myself to hit rock bottom in all the ways I knew I needed to grow.
Some may agree that it was unconscious self-sabotage. It's the truth.
And I hurt myself along the way. I was the one making my smile crooked in the first place, I realized. refusing to the beautiful surrendering of my own unique, life story, even during the ugliest times continued to twist me into a tense feeling of anger, hate, and pity in this society.
Once I surrendered to being born with a crooked smile, I felt free.
My soul was caught by another who saw the beauty within my crooked smile. Someone who has held me and helped me heal by listening to my story. As he taught me how to let others in, those, too, listened to my story.
You all showed me my reflection. No filter, no fillers, nothing fake. Because of that, I finally, not only saw my beautiful smile reveal itself in its crooked, imperfect glory, I felt it through my entire body. My veins are on fire with the fuel of hope, motivation, and excitement for my crooked life to continue while I show everyone the twisted, stained, chipped piece of me I will hold like a medal of honor.
For all of you to feel healed enough to show your crooked smiles, too.
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