crooked smile

One time, my sister left a comment on one of my Facebook photos saying I'm never smiling in them, which is true. I don't smile. I don't laugh. I know I've talked to her about this but I don't know if this was before or after her comment. I don't do so good at remembering these things. Sometimes I'm better than others.

Smiling. Ever since my girlfriend told me I'm smiling all the time I've thought about smiles constantly. I look at pictures of me smiling and I wonder why I look like that. I smile in the mirror and wonder why it's so crooked, why it looks so fake. I'm a good actor, so long as you don't expect me to smile. I look at pictures of her and I notice she's always smiling in them, and she used to hate cameras. It's like she couldn't help herself. She smiled like it was a secret. I always wondered if I was ever really smiling all the time.

I look at pictures of my sister, who smiles like a cat--she's happy and happy to be happy. It's smug, but not in an arch or condescending way at all. When she's smiling she's showing it off. That's her in photographs. She really appreciates being happy.

I know my smile wasn't always crooked. I'm not sure where that came from. It didn't used to be so wry and skeptical, so arch, so put-on. I didn't used to be afraid to admit that I'm having fun, without any sort of commentary on who I am or what that means. I didn't used to obsess over people who could look like that.