I think you’re a pretender because of your smile.. it shows up everywhere except for your eyes.

You see, that’s where everyone goes wrong.

Everyone thinks the most important part of your smile is your mouth, and the way the corners of your lips reach upward for the sky. But really, the most important part of your smile is found in your eyes, and the way they light up like stars when you’re truly feeling the emotion that your lips portray.

You are a pretender because your eyes are not stars.

Your eyes, they are little time capsules. They are windows, and when they are open, I can see right into the home that is your past. You still live there.

Your memories are VHS tapes that you rewind and watch again. You carry a backpack, like most pretenders do, and fill it with things that get you through the day - books and laughs and mint-flavored Chapstick. But under these things, you hide the VHS tapes. The pain, and the tears, and the nights you spent wide awake in someone else’s bed. They’re hidden beneath everything else, and it is easy to deny that they exist. But you feel them weighing you down, which is why it is impossible for you to ever climb mountains without stopping to take a breath.

I know you are a pretender.

I am too.