It looks like joy,
this curve drawn carefully across my face,
a practiced shape,
worn smooth like a river stone
held too often in trembling hands.

But behind it,
a sound waits,
not loud,not desperate,
just steady,
like rain tapping at windows
long after anyone's left to listen.

I speak in laughter,
because silence would splinter me.
I nod at questions
whose answers
I've buried beneath
a thousand practiced gestures.

You see light,
but it filters through a cracked pane,
falling uneven
on a room I've locked from the inside.

There is a cry there,
not always tears,
not always words,
just the ache of holding something
no one else can carry.

Still,the smile remains.
Because sometimes
the mask is not a lie,
but a shelter.
A way to say,
I'm still here,
even when I'm unraveling.