I smiled at you and went on with life. Or so I thought. I didn't understand, and at the time, I was completely clueless. And then it got a little better. Now, when you say something, I understand the premis...it means something. Something bad. And sometimes I can see that something, sometimes not. However, I keep up the pretense that I still don't understand. Why? Whose to say I'm not just like you? If my innocence is faked then...doesn't that make me worse than you? In my eyes, maybe, but you define it as "normal." I don't want to be normal. I don't want to be you. Maybe I am, anyway? I don't know.



So I smiled at you and went on with life. But in times of lonliness, where no one else, nothing else could hold me accountable except for me, I would let my guard down. Your words would come back, and now more than then I can understand them. Their disgusting meaning. Immaturity? Not even close. I'll revel in them. I'll imagine myself in a story contianing their black, slimy interior, covering my naked body until my pores leak the reeking stuff, dripping into my chapped lips and down my scream-scarred throat. Will I like it? If I let everything I was taught fade away, maybe I will. If everything didn't matter, then I would be the person to say words that would scar a little girl's innocence forever. And I would laugh at the way it destroys her life.



When I smiled at you, I was an angel, wasn't I? You believed it. You scorned me for it. Angels are bad things, you said. Does that mean demons are good? And if so, are you a demon? Should I trade my wings for black, cracked skin and a tongue that slithers in and out of people's minds like a blade through a pale white ribcage? Is that desireable above a white robe and starry crown? What is up and what is down in this world anymore? But this is not my point. I am not an angel, am I? It's just a mask I wear, a halo to hide the horns, feathers to hide the claws, a robe to hide the rotting flesh beneath. This is who I am. There is a light shining from the robe, but it is jarred and uneven because it shines through cracked bones and an empty chest. Will it help you? Will you even care? Or will I just give up?



So I'll smile at you and go on with life. Does this count? "Going on" means being myself, but if I am not who you see, who am I? How can I go on? How fake is this smile? I'll tell you what. The next time I ask you a question I already know the answer to, take that knife I know you keep in your pocket even though it is against the rules, and sharpen it on my collarbone. Make me bleed. Cut through this lying pure white robe so you can see the dead body beneath, and do what you want. I'll take it. But this time you'll know what cannot hurt me, what will not surprise me. Touch me. I will cry, I will scream. But then you'll see me smile through my tears. Because the demon, the girl you want me to be, has appeared. Take her. I don't want her. But she is part of me. You'll have to live with both of us, until one of us wins the other over. Please...if you do not do this, then stay away from me.



So that I don't have to smile and go on with life, but think about the things I am going to say to make you stop. I may not have been saved, but there is another little angel out there who might decay from the inside out just because of something you said. Cobwebs are collecting between the spires of this starry halo, and my feathers are molting slowly. This is not something you have done, it is something I have allowed you to do. I did not know any different. By the time I did, I was too late. I pray you will leave me alone now, before I fall onto you and beg you to strip me of this robe and crown and angel wings. Stay away...so that my smile is the only thing you will see. I pray soon it will become real. So that I might go on living.