How is it that My Soul Smiles

I hear all the time how infectious my smile is.

But how does my smile even shine through?

How do my eyes reflect honesty when I have lived a lie so long?

Behind my infectious smile, and honest eyes was pain.

Pain from a childhood trying to please others, and feeling like a failure.

Pain from the days of my youth when I harbored so much shame.

But why shame? How failure? When I was the kid everyone desired.

To the community, I did no wrong, but within my immediacy I did no right.

Despite the scars from my past, my soul often found a way to smile.

Yet, when I look at me now from then, I see the pain that others couldn’t.

It was never that I wasn’t a good photographer.

It was that when I was taking my picture alone, I felt no reason to smile.

When you look at my pictures, what do you see?

Do you see the joy I gave everyone else?

Or do you see the torture of criticism?

Or is the sensation of disappointment?

Today, though, I choose to hug me in sincerity.

I choose to give myself the peace I never thought I deserved.

I choose to no longer be bullied or judged.

So that I can see my soul smiling like the others who were ignorant of my heartache.

Because today, I decided that I deserve to be infected by my smile more than anyone else in the world.

So, I acknowledge my trauma.

I acknowledge it and forgive it.

I acknowledge it and accept it.

I acknowledge it and heal it.

Through tears.

Through memories of hurt.

Through recollections of ridicule.

And at the end of it all, I hug myself, and I smile.

I smile like I AM the happiest, healthiest, wealthiest man on earth.

I smile like a man free after being wrongfully imprisoned for forty-six years.

I smile like one who had lost his own soul, and found it once again.

I smile for me, and I AM willing to share this smile with all who desire it.