Pasting on a Smile

Pasting on a Smile

by Shen

She Pastes On the Smile As She Rides
She smiles as she straps herself in
She waves to the people on the side
She sits on the edge of her seat
And the car begins to click up the hill.
It's a high one;
The top is out of view and she has no control, but
She pastes on the smile as she rides

As the train climbs she dares to look back for a moment.
All the other cars are empty;
the seat belts blow in the gathering winds.
She is already so far above the ground.
Something feels wrong;
Like the moment you know a dream is turning dark.
But even now,
She pastes on the smile as she rides

The train gathers speed.
The motion makes it hard to lift her arms.
Gradually she gets her hands to her face.
She feels the smile there but it isn't adhering.
Under her thumb she feels a corner lifting.
It begins to peal off just as she realizes
She is at the top of the hill.
The car comes over the precipice.
It pauses for a moment
The promise of a view of all the world crosses her mind,
but then the descent begins.

Gathering speed, her hands reach forward,
hanging on to the front of the car,
The smile slips out of her hands
It is falling
Has fallen
Will fall
To the ground
She screams
The rush is intense but the tears come too,
Washing over the blankness
Which shows through the missing smile.

Panic! Soon she will be at the bottom.
The train will round a bend
And her car will come into view of all those waiting.
She must fix this blankness!
She can't let them see the truth.
Frantically she begins to build the smile again
Working with both hands with her being with her soul

She remakes the fake, plastic thing
And pastes it over her face just in the last moment
As the train pauses.

She is right where she started again
and, wow, that's good, no one can tell.
No one seems to wonder why
She pastes on the smile as she rides.

Nobody else gets on the train.
She has a moment to wave before the nightmare begins again
She is climbing high into a blackening sky, but still,
She pastes on the smile as she rides.