Eyes Don’t Lie
You can train your mouth to smile, teach your body how to stand still, how to fold its pain into good posture and polite gestures. You can laugh at the right moments, nod at the right times, move through the world as though nothing is wrong but the eyes don’t learn those tricks.
The eyes are honest in a way the rest of us are not. Our eyes don’t rehearse neither do they pretend because they don’t understand how to lie convincingly.
You can say I’m fine with steady hands and a calm voice, but your eyes will hesitate for half a second too long. You can claim indifference while your shoulders remain relaxed, yet your eyes will soften when love is near. You can master the art of composure, but grief will still pool quietly behind your gaze.
Love announces itself there first, before words or touch and even courage. It holds up in the way the eyes light up at a familiar name, the way they search a room unconsciously, the way they soften when they find who they’re looking for. Even when the mouth stays guarded, the eyes lean forward, eager and unafraid.
Pain lives there too. The tired kind of pain. The pain that settles in after disappointment, after loss, after learning how to be strong for too long. It shows up as dullness, as distance, a gaze that no longer stays anywhere for long. The body may keep moving, but the eyes carry the weight.
That’s why you can’t fake presence. That’s why you can’t hide heartbreak completely and that’s why the eyes betray truths we haven’t yet learned how to say out loud. Our eyes are the witnesses of everything we’ve loved and everything we’ve endured. They remember what the body tries to forget and reveal what the mind tries to control.
These eyes don’t lie. Why? They don’t know how.