Ode to her smile

Lines form shapely curves, the permanence of these dimples on her face hard to miss, except now. One has come and gone, leaving the right side around her lips, empty, naked. She was robbed, he took her childhood with him, leaving her with nothing but beatings, fear, and the bitter taste traced on her mouth. But her mouth took the feelings in all at once and swallowed them whole. Her insides were broken like a bent needle on a compass that can’t spin, or a bird unable to fly. Still, these curves and lines sat there the light in her eyes watching the tears fall her humanity, dignity, her self-esteem crushed like oranges that very morning. She, still on her knees, raised nothing except her face, smeared with so much shame, so much, so much of her pain rode on her lips.