They Should Stick in our Throats

You look great. Good work today. Thank you for all your help. No no, you've definitely lost weight. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm sick. I'm injured. I don't feel well. I have somewhere I need to be. Nothing's wrong. I'm fine. Life is good. Things are good. Everything is okay. I've been keeping myself busy. I've made a lot of progress. I've been dating. Yeah, its been fun. I'm totally okay with being friends. I'm not ready for a serious relationship, but we can be friends. I'm over it. I've moved on. No, I'm free, lets go. No, nothing pressing-- I have plenty of time. I was bored, so I thought I'd give you a call. I'll be there in ten minutes. I lost track of time. My alarm didn't go off. I had a flat. I ran out of gas. Traffic was terrible. You look beautiful. You're all I can think about. My dearest, you are in my heart and in my mind always. I love you.

These are the lies we tell, the shiny layers of lacquer we apply in coat after dripping coat until our pores suffocate and our eyes seal open and our smile freezes to our bleach-white teeth, tottering stiffly until one day we tip and we shatter, a suicide bomber in a fun house sending shards of our illusions to pierce passers-by, more deadly, more heinous than explosives strapped to a child like American flag suspenders to keep our pants from falling about our legs, but we continue to let the bubbling ooze boil from our burning throats, fresh tar on the asphault on the hottest day in summer, filling the cracks that can never really be fixed, turning soft like chewing gum that hides the nervous twitch in our face and makes it easier to smile as we vomit Elmer's glue into our hands and gather together the bits of colored construction paper roughly hewn with plastic scissors that don't cut because our teachers know that if we knew that our life would never be so pretty or precise as our collage, we might save ourselves from our frozen fates, and slash the fresh sheet to shreds and let them fall to the floor.