People talk about smiles like they’re easy. Like they’re just something you wear without effort Like they’re natural, normal, everyday things. But for me, they never were. I lost my smile when I was four. It was taken. Ripped away in silence. Buried in a moment that no one saw, and no one ever asked about. Since then, I’ve been pretending. Smiling in pictures. Laughing when people expect me to. But it never feels real. It never reaches my heart. I hear people talk about joy… about happiness… How does that feel? What does that look like? Because I honestly don’t know. Every day feels like fire to me burning from the inside out. I wake up tired. I go to bed heavy. And in between, I’m just trying to survive a life that doesn’t seem to get softer. I don’t know why life turned out like this. Why the world has been so cruel. Why I had to grow up so fast, carrying a pain no child should ever know. They say time heals. But I’ve waited. And I’m still burning.