If I wanted another person to smile at, and nod to, and lie to,
to hate secretly within the poison cage of my chest,
I probably would not have picked you.
But then, that’s just one less-traveled road
on the bleak night highways of my head
lit up by pointless neon signs and warehouse fronts that ate my soul—
it’s just I do so much smiling, nodding, lying these days.
I plug in wan neon grins and you treat them like they’re floodlights.
I’m blinking, drowning in false brightness—
“who are you, anyway?”
I can’t see past the stage I’m prating on,
I’m praying that no one sees the crack in my veneer, but I still want someone to fill the holes in me sometime,
look through my banged-up smile and find them,
I know they’re hard to see and full of hollow dark but I swear,
sometimes,
sun shines through.