We don't believe in you

When the big happies are hard to reach you gotta settle for the little smiles. I slide through the kitchen in cosy socks with ribbons or float through the bathroom in tights with a run of slits above my left knee. The nylon distorts my freckles and my bruises. There's the release of a well-scrubbed face with whatever microbead things that scratch and tingle to making it all better with the moisturiser, the only one that doesn't make my skin worse. There's turning the tub of Julie's doublebase on it's side so the cream ploomphs onto the plastic and finding the circle of invisible dryness that disappears and reappears in exactly the same place. Like a ten piece was rubbed onto her skin and placed on mine. It's finding the bumps on my left shoulder to remind myself of myself. There's other smiles like a book that feels just the right size in my hand or the pink of the gaffer tape that holds my earphones together. There's the fact that my mum seals up my window with sellotape and then we wonder if the bees will get stuck and if they have bodies or just fuzz. Then we sat for the longest time trying to remember if bees had heads.

There's a smile of a quiet song with a piano. There's picking out all the red skittles and making a pile to eat one by one. There's finding out my dad likes the same band as I do and has two of their albums. There's pens falling out of my pockets as I try to carry too many notebooks at once. There's a message from someone who barely even knows me but liked me enough to say hey. There's a big glass of water and a blank piece of paper and a pen I haven't chewed yet and my mum interrupting because she needs a book to read and saying my room looks like a brothel. There's a certain way that girl moved, a combination of colours and the nose of a boy that caught my eye. There's knowing that in a couple of hours when I think that's time to call it a day, I won't sleep because there's too much to think and knowing I won't write it down but the barest hints like Cinderella in a courtyard of bubbles from the fountain or feet hanging down in the back of the car as she pulls herself further outside or twins dancing in thrift store suits. It's knowing all of this will come before the bad thoughts and then the dreams and then the headaches before my coffee. But for now I've got a smile to tide me over and half a glass of water and a mouthful of jack and a pen I've only chewed a little. I just need another piece of paper.