When the dark curtains that envelop our household are strung back by your cheeks.
Your smile the only illumination of my day.
Imperfect teeth cutting through jagged words and flailing fists.
The laugh, by no means angelic, not the laugh penned by romance authors,
a laugh of raw, unfiltered happiness, alone in a void of misery.
A reminder of hope in a seemingly hopeless world.
A smile of childish naivety, striking through the reaching fingers of approaching adulthood.
No longer wholly innocent.
A smile that contradicts many of the daily emotions you fight.
Yet is the singular thing that carries you through.
Reminding you of moments worth living for.
Reminding me that you, our memories together, good and bad.
The smiles and laughs that we shared through childhood, will always be worth holding out for.