'Artifacial'... Artifacial?? Wow, I've coined a new word! Maybe one day it will be 150000001th word in the Oxford dictionary! I feel so proud about this! Feel like smiling.. :) An ear to ear smile, originating from my heart, reaching my eyes, reaching out to everyone around me! A new word to enrich everyone's vocab by one and to make my voice heard around the world... To have everyone around the world using this like they use 'happy' or 'smile'! But why to create such a word whose inception in itself is a paradox? It makes me smile.. A true smile, not a smile which makes me sick, not a false smile... But its a smile from within. The smiles i see all around remind me of the facial which old aunties put on to appear younger. To fool the world. To hide their true self. A fake face. An artifacial.
Thats why I think its a paradox that such an ugly term can make me smile. Maybe its just me who sees it... I go to a party and see you conjuring up a laugh, a smile, a roar of delight at anything remotely resembling verbal communication. Maybe its just your sense of humour. I see your smiles. Or rather your masks. You cover your mouth with a smile. Hide crooked teeth behind angular lips. Your dimpled cheeks remind me of dark valleys, the high cheekbones of rocky ridges. But the mask doesn't go up to your eyes, see? I look into your eyes and find myself staring back from within a well. Dont know how to explain it but feels a little like pushing a wall. Are you really smiling, darling? Or are you making fun of me? Yes, you are smiling after all. Your high pitched shreiks of pleasure crash against my eardrums like the waves against a rocky cliff.
It really hurts me.. I feel like crying. :-( Not just tears flooding the front of my face. Not just loud, anguished wails that rouse the neighbours. No, not just that. I feel my heart bleeding, as if a loved one died. Giving me a pain to numb all pain. A sorrow above tears. A sadness beyond sound. Do you feel any pain? Or are you beyond pain now? Have you ever felt a pain that's hot as a molten glass, that makes all your masks melt away? Or is your mask pain proof like it was happiness proof?
Why don't you remove it then? What are you scared of? Can you really feel scared of the people around you? Na, they don't matter. They are under their masks, see? So logically they can't really be angry! Its just their mask dear, not them. They're just pretending to be angry cos they know they are supposed to behave this way. The anger they feel is just like the happiness you feel! Its not real, no! Just like you they are incapable of feeling anything! In fact they are scared just like you. Scared of their own shadow, insecure in their skin, wary of the blood in their veins, walking with hunched shoulders, afraid to look me in the eye. Are you sure now that this is just a mask? Hasn't it become your skin now? A thick hide to desensitize you from the surroundings? An atmosphere to burn down the stimuli? A shell in which a human-like form is growing after no purpose whatsoever?
This is the reason you feel everything but only a little bit. The reason you shed tears but don't cry. Wail aloud but don't feel pain. Laugh without pleasure. Smile without that special feeling of joy. This artifacial is choking me so much now. Have to remove it for some time. I hope I can. Will get back to you later love. Enjoy all you can while I'm not here! Or have you forgotten even that?
