A Plastic Smile - She Wanted A Love Poem

The following poem is from the section, "Love Hurts" of She Wanted A Love Poem, a collection of poems.

A Plastic Smile

They sat on the hill
Overlooking their little town
Under the night sky,
One she no longer
Tried to guess how old
It was.

Under shiny stars
And a moon not yet full,
He took her hands
And professed his love,
Out of his pocket
He pulled out a velvet box
And popped it open.

Within sat a ring
With a solitary diamond
That shone brighter
Than the sun.
He waited for an answer
For the answer
He wanted to hear
And she gave it to him.

His happiness was potent
And he embraced her
Forgetting that her ribs
Were still bruised from
The last time he hit her.
The tears she shed
Out of pain, he mistook
For tears of happiness.

He quickly placed the ring
On her finger still
Black and blue from when
He slammed her hand
In the doorway
As she tried to escape
Him and the brutality
He was about to
Rain down on her.

Although she was in pain,
She plastered on her face her
Signature plastic smile.
A sense of relief washed over her,
He had not planned to kill her
On this hill.

As they walked back
To the car, he spoke
Non stop about the wedding
Their marriage,
Soon enough children,
Their life together,
And she smiled her plastic smile.

As they drove back down
The hill, he smile melted
As everything began
To sink in.

Their life together.
The thought sank deeper
And deeper until it tripped
Her survival instinct,
Her need to survive
At all costs.

Quietly, she undid
Her seatbelt and waited
For the right moment.
She didn't have to
Wait long.

As they rounded a corner
With a sheer cliff edge
At the driver's side,
She attacked, pushing
The steering wheel
Completely to the cliff.

He was taken by surprise
And it was too late for him
To undo the lock. And as
He tried to regain control
She opened the door
And rolled out.

She kept rolling
Until she came to a stop
In the middle of the road.

She laid there,
Looking up at the stars
And the moon,
Listening to her fiance's car
Fall down the hill.

She did not move
Until she could no longer
Hear the car falling,
Only then did she went
To look at the damage.

The car had caught
On fire. By morning
It would be nothing
But charred remains.

The scene was so familiar,
In this same spot,
Her whole family had died
And she had survived.
The exact same way,
The only difference between
Then and now was
She didn't have that guilt
Of surviving when everyone
She loved had perished.

This time around,
She understood that she
Had a chance of a life
Worth living, one that
Didn't include being
Someone's punching bag.

She limped away from
The scene of the "accident",
Making her way away
From the town she called home
For far too long.

With each step,
She felt lighter.
With each step,
A smile grew brighter,
Become more genuine.
With each step,
A plan began to form
On how she was going to live.

With each step,
She vowed never to wear
A plastic smile.

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of poems,
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