Past Our Pageantry

I sat down the other day,
To stitch words together,
Just for you.
"If I..." I called it,
Before crumbling it up,
And starting over anew.

The problem wasn't my fingers,
They easily found the page.
Nothing missing from my vocabulary,
It has remained the same.
The thing I couldn't conjure,
Which really is a shame,

Is that I know nothing about you,
Barely just your name.
It's not that you're not worth knowing,
I just haven't spent the time,
For reasons unknown,
I've left you alone,
And lingered lonely on my vine.

I think it may be a condition,
Of how we all condition our own lives,
We put on masks,
Get up on stage,
And fumble for our lines.

We listen for the Oohs and Ahhs,
Of the crowd,
For which we play.
We wait for the admonishments,
Or endorsements of our critics,
Listening intently to what they have to say.

We live our lives performing,
Dancing shadowless,
Under the lights.
All exposed,
Nowhere to hide,
Accepting our own lies.

But there is no stage,
There is no show,
The critics are just our friends,
Our coworkers, our families,
All of them strangers,
Watching us dance,
To a story we made up,
With drum beats only we can hear.

Hoping,
Always hoping,
That maybe someone, someday, somehow,
Will look past our pageantry,
And just dance with us.