Second Skin

  In many a crowded room,

filled with serpentine questions,

fictions form our second skin.

I feel those establishment hisses

in the liquored language of cities

are filled with towering conquests

built upon foundations of smoke.

And I feel the distance of continents,

As I listen to a litany of seasoned speeches.

Sweetened with heroics, spiced with drama

and bittered with the woes of privilege.

And I wonder...

In the brief silences between us,

Beyond these elaborate orchestrations,

If we know each other at all

or if we care to.

For with each passing day

it seems that  the pressures

of conformity are pale against

the void of not being true.