Merry Faces

It's all lights and heat in there,
that symphony of chatter
bouncing against head drums
like native intuition.

Christmas etc. etc.
Everyone seems friendly enough
though its all a bit rehearsed
like everything else,
trained from birth to be mild swells
rather than tidal waves.

The crisp sucker punch of outside
feels better than the booze,
much better than the cigarette,
and I wonder how we pull this off
year after year,
these social commitments
where we goal each other
to offer as little as possible
before escape,
home,
where we can unzip and be the version
nobody knows...
except maybe that one person
if you're god damn lucky.