Innocence: A Question

I knew a man who lost his mind over swing sets and drank like he was trying to drown himself. I knew a woman who broke into a smile every time someone looked her way and broke down in her bedroom every night. Her smile was manic. I remember because I knew her dark side better than her light. And I know how he drank because I drowned next to him. I sometimes wonder if that’s how innocence died. In a pool of liquor and tears. Every adult I know smiles like a wolf, more snarl than grin. Every smile is made of stone-- granite, not marble. Grotesques instead of David. Less beautiful and less breakable. His smile is a graveyard. His teeth are tombstones. Her innocence plays hide-and-go-seek with the bow and arrow of her laughing mouth like she’ll die if she loses. I wonder where innocence went to die. In a bottle. On a swing set. Behind a smile.  I wonder if the headstone reads “Look for me where the laughter stops.” I look in the mirror, practice turning the corners of my mouth up, carve my face into something happier, something less like me and more who I used to be. I wonder if innocence cuts everyone this way. If it’s fighting for its life in every person that wants to break down in a bathroom, in favor of swallowing their own blood before screaming for help. I know a girl whose laughter mimics sunlight. I know a boy who swings so high he might take flight. I wonder who they’ll grow up to be. I wonder where their smiles will crack and become gravesites for who they were.