La Mujer Loca

Chapter 5

I sit in solitude, clutching a mirror. But the reflection is not mine. What I see is a programmed expression, hardwired since childhood a smile. A smile when harassed. A smile when belittled. A smile when coerced into acquiescence. A smile when everything is fundamentally dissonant.

'You’re a woman, don’t frown.'

'Women are sweeter when they smile.'

'What’s so difficult about smiling? You look beautiful.'

They demand my visage to be a static portrait decorative, mute, compliant, and perpetually grinning. But I am a human organism. I possess incisors capable of biting, not merely lips contoured for a smile.

I was not synthesized to be an aesthetic pleasure for anyone, especially not for those who cannot sustain eye contact without scanning my anatomy.

'Smile, sweetheart, it makes you prettier.' Excuse me? I am not a decorative fixture for your mundane existence.

They never inquire if I am mentally sound. They merely mandate that I appear so. Smile, despite the psychic fracture. Smile, despite the metabolic exhaustion. Smile, despite the urge to unleash a primal vocalization.

If I display anger? 'Are you experiencing PMS?'

If I display sorrow? 'How dramatic, aren't you a woman?'

If I remain silent? 'How cold, try smiling more.'

It is amusing. The world is profoundly phobic of a woman who does not smile. As if my resting lip line is a structural threat.

'Smile, or you’ll scare off your potential partner.' Good. Let him realize I am not a jester in his personal theater.

I am not a 24-hour retail outlet with mandatory customer service protocols. I am not a menial servant required to mirror warmth while being berated. I am not a programmed interface that functions at the touch of your ego.

I am human. Multilayered. Complex. Laden with pathologies that cannot be cured by a hollow command to 'smile.'

My smile is not a civic duty. My smile is a premium privilege. If you receive it, consider yourself statistically fortunate.

'Don’t ask me to smile when your existence is what makes me frown.'

Sometimes, I want to stand before the world and detonate, " I REFUSE TO SMILE! And no, I will not offer an apology for that."