words unspoken

Meaningless phrases

Falling in thick drops

Formulaic in composition.

Polished to a place where

All human error has been absolved through work

where each day slips like the footing in a muddy hill

framed in labor but short on accomplishment

There is a stamina

A callous of psyche

So bored from the suffering

That seems so far away, and is still so pressing

In every possible context

Everything inside-out and wrong

Awkwardly impossible to contextualize

And I feel rooting for some other, greater storm

That lies just beyond the horizon

Some greater chaos that feels so distinctly like roulette

Betting on gladiators of genre to raze the other

With gimmicky luchador personas

beyond the spectacle that nobody would take seriously

in other theaters

And there is a persistence, like a faint bell

Like the loss of hearing creeping upon you in a way beyond control

In the way that the scars make the damage real

When all other, fonder, memories have faded into the rose-color tint of nostalgia

As words that sit upon a shelf, easier to speak about

Than to actually read

and it shapes the language in a fuzzy feeling
as if acting out the lines rather than actually feeling them
like a pantomime of shared fear that is commiseratory
to place your audience's mind at ease 
by never bringing up the conversation -