(no subject)

Get it on. Walk, slowly. Ghost playground
waltz. Head on collusion. Lose. Grip.
Get it on. Ball room, furniture made of lips
breathing. Move. Move, sigh. The walls.
Get on with it. They breathe when you're
inside. Step, sink. Gentle, song humid.
Get it on with. Epileptic reptile, betrayal,
lust. Sand claws, scale, rasp. Let me
go with it. Does she listen, glass eared,
hollow tearful, lost but
forgiven?

Or marble, broken. Dust fisted
vigil. For the last days, for
the ruin of our pilgrimage. Glimmer.
Gone, get it? Let me,
leave me. Lighter, flame. Turned away
the world. The circle of my back. Your heat,
hunger, your aimless endless hunger. The world.
The circle of my back. Glowing, spark hidden. Inward.
Go. Let it.

Who

I don't like this person I become sometimes: At work, in official situations, in transactions. I detest the facade, but have come to love the game. Honesty always barbed. First thing is to find out what someone wants from you. Not in a material sense! Most people I meet want their expectations broken in small ways, providing novelty without threat. They are the simpler set, as almost any mild eccentricity will do. Rouse interest, then provide positive reinforcement and project confidence. The more rigid people don't want their expectations broken. With these, identifying what those expectations are and exceeding them according to their own internal standards works best. Overall, a genial and conscientious demeanor, hints of friendly subversiveness.

The best complaint I've had is rather ambiguous. "We... have no idea what to think about you." Of course, quite happy with that.

Why can't you just be yourself, be natural?

I am. Always. But what you're really asking of me is to be unaware of the processes driving behavior. Every interaction is calculated in some way, whether you're party to it or not. This truth makes people uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. The facade is mandatory, freedom is forgetting.

I'm not that grim, not really. I enjoy... all this. Love it. Relish. Sometimes.

Because people can align, they can fit so perfectly with each other that their masks dissolve. Sublimity. For a moment, forever, through any sense, even the smoke signals of writing. Is that what I clumsily attempt to reach? Using all the wrong tools, chasing the unquantifiable with a calculator? It's ok. One good conversation is worth it.