"Smile"

Smile, laugh, joke. They won't suspect a thing, they won't even notice when you stop. Our brains are so stubborn like that sometimes. Sometimes we don't even know when someone's hurting because we're used to them being happy. Happy means different things for everyone. Happiness for me is making other people think I am happy. Happiness is wearing a fake smile and listening to everyone else's trouble. Happiness is pretending you have all of your shit together all the time. Hi my name is Jack and I'm probably the most two faced person you will ever meet. Not the two faced, you talk to me I talk behind your back, but the I seem happy to everyone but I'm really slowly dying on the inside. There's really no reason I should be sad, its what I keep telling myself. There should be no reason why I feel the way I do, the gaping hole in my chest every-time I'm alone. It's not even like my life sucks, I have a supportive but sometimes annoying family, I play football, I have friends, I have a best friend, and I have a beautiful girlfriend. I have things I loved doing, but those things don't give me the same happiness anymore. Nothing does. I don't think anything could ever make the moments where I'm so nervous about who knows what that I can't breathe. I can't breathe, see, talk, and half the time I feel like I'm dying. All of these feelings just happen and they never stop. But, yet what everyone sees is a kid with his shit put together and a lovely smile. I can't even look in the mirror most mornings, it makes me sick. I don't even recognize who I see, but I don't even know who I want to see instead. My once nicely kept dark hair is now a curly mess, my once light eyes now carry such a darkness that they can't even be called light anymore. But, what everyone else sees is a boy growing up, and trying to "find himself". What they see is me trying a new "style" or I don't know how they even justify my eyes. It all goes back to our brains. Our brains being stubborn, refusing to see the change and to focus on the normal.  Nowadays  I'm not quite sure what my normal is, because I don't think being sad all the time is normal. I don't think I'm normal, I have all these thoughts that are awful that won't just go away. But hey maybe that's just me "finding myself". I just wish my finding myself was a lot shorter. Until then I'm going to keep wearing my fake smile like a mask. It's what they want to see, and who knows maybe I'll start to believe my own fake-ness. Maybe just maybe I'll start to believe in my smile and not just believe it's fake. Maybe I won't, but I only know one thing. Give the people what they want and no one gets hurt. Except maybe yourself.