I always want to know what you’re smiling at, so I ask the same question over and over.

You laugh and tell me nothing, but your smile widens until it gently nudges the corners of your eyes and my curiosity deepens.

It’s almost like you’ve set your smile as your default position; your stock-standard reaction; your ‘go to’ mechanism when you don’t find those words you search for.

You are beautiful and mostly silent.

The emotions well behind the smile and flicker briefly in the greener depths of your mostly hazel eyes. In places I can see pinholes of dark brown burnt deeply into your irises.

I like to think of these as portals into your soul.

But they are so tiny I can’t see very far at all.

You are beautiful and a silent thief.

My heart is not for sale but every time you smile you steal it from me anyway.

Every time you return it a little piece is missing.

There is a collection of these pieces gathering under a tree somewhere in a place I used to know and visit often.

I’ve forgotten the directions to this place so I rely on instinct to take me back so I can gather these pieces to me again.

When I arrive, I notice you’ve placed the pieces tenderly and carefully there for me to collect.

It was never your intention to keep them.

You are beautiful and silent.

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Assistant Editor: Guenevere Neufeld / Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Jan Tik / Flickr