numb enough to smile

Numb enough to smile, that’s the dangerous stage right there

When your soul stops screaming and starts decorating the damage instead

I walked into parties dressed clean as resurrection Sunday while my insides looked like war documentaries

Teeth white enough to fool everybody, eyes dark enough to betray the truth if they stared too long

Bitch I mastered fake comfort like it was sacred doctrine

Learned how to laugh on cue

Learned how to flirt while emotionally decomposing beneath designer jackets

Learned how to say I’m fine without choking on the lie halfway through

The bartender knew my order before I spoke

Whiskey cold as morgue drawers sliding down my throat

Music vibrating through the club like artificial heartbeat replacements

Bodies grinding together trying to forget they were spiritually starving

I smiled at strangers with apocalypse hidden behind my dimples

Girls touching my tattoos like they could decode the suffering underneath

One blonde whore whispered you look mysterious in my ear

Nah bitch I just been emotionally exhausted since childhood

My phone kept glowing with unread concern from people who only care at night

Everybody becomes philosophers after midnight and alcohol

Everybody wants to save you until saving requires consistency

Then suddenly your pain becomes inconvenient background noise

Numb enough to smile

Numb enough to flirt back

Numb enough to watch my own destruction through detached eyes like it belonged to another motherfucker entirely

That kind of numbness ain’t peace

It’s anesthesia for the soul

I remember standing in a bathroom stall staring at my reflection under fluorescent judgment

Hands shaking slightly from substances and suppressed emotion

Mirror asking silent questions I couldn’t answer honestly

Who the fuck are you without the performance

There were pills inside my pocket shaped like tiny promises

Tiny colorful exits from unbearable self awareness

I rolled them across my palm like prayer beads for lost generations

Thinking maybe oblivion and salvation ain’t that far apart after all

A girl with silver rings and tired eyes followed me outside

Smoke wrapped around her body like cursed halos

She said you look like somebody carrying invisible funerals

I almost kissed her just for understanding without explanation

Instead we sat on the curb beneath neon liquor signs

Traffic rushing past like rivers of mechanical despair

She talked about self destruction casually

Like discussing weather forecasts or grocery lists

That’s how broken people communicate sometimes

Not through dramatic confessions

But through small admissions hidden between sarcasm and cigarette smoke

Tiny glimpses into private hells nobody fully escapes

She showed me scars on her thigh like faded scripture

I showed her my silence

Both of us pretending vulnerability didn’t terrify the fuck out of us

Both of us wanting connection while distrusting every hand that reached closer

Inside the club everybody kept dancing like judgment day got postponed indefinitely

Bass shaking the walls like angry gods trapped underground

Sweaty bodies moving together searching for meaning through friction and intoxication

Temporary heaven rented by the hour

And there I was again

Smiling perfectly

Soul numb as frozen oceans beneath moonlight

Heart beating out of obligation instead of desire

My ex used to say my happiness looked rehearsed

Like an actor forgetting lines halfway through the performance

She wasn’t wrong

I learned early that honesty scares people more than beautiful lies ever will

So I became charming instead

Made pain digestible through humor and aesthetics

Turned trauma into personality traits

Turned emotional collapse into art people could consume comfortably

Motherfucker even my therapist looked tired listening to me

Like she knew some sadness grows roots too deep for language

I kept describing emptiness with poetic metaphors

Because saying I don’t feel alive anymore sounded too terrifying in plain words

Numb enough to smile

That’s when danger becomes elegant

That’s when suffering puts on expensive cologne and learns social etiquette

That’s when people stop asking if you’re okay because your mask fits too naturally

I walked home near sunrise with bloodshot eyes and strangers’ perfume on my clothes

City quiet as abandoned sanctuaries after disaster

Birds singing like hope still existed somewhere beyond concrete and addiction

Meanwhile my spirit dragged itself behind me like a body bag through shallow water

I unlocked my apartment

Darkness greeted me like loyal religion

No applause

No music

No artificial intimacy to distract me anymore

Just silence

Heavy as tombstones

Honest as open wounds

And for the first time that night

My smile disappeared completely

Leaving nothing but a tired motherfucker standing alone in the kitchen

Trying to remember whether he was healing

Or simply becoming comfortable with decay