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circle of forced smiles
Sitting in her office she looks out the window past a parking lot into nothing.
Smiling a smile with such abandon she almost forgets that it is forced, never to be real, never to be genuine.
Thoughts of the past, present, future, pain, hunger, endless work to feed her children.
Memories of aid, food stamps, cold.
She turns her chair to face the green wall. Life never changing. Work until she dies. Help her children to survive only to repeat her mistakes, to become her, to live her life.
Alcohol. hunger. poverty. like her mother, like her grandchild. The circle that keeps her going, the thoughts that plaster the strained, unnatural, smile on her face.
