modern mask

Modern Mask
I engross myself in my television, that grotesque mess of wires,
only to see the exaggerations of my life flicker across the screen.
I saw a woman nestled in her own conspiracies running to the post office with a dire package. Running to the doctor’s office to hypochondriacally feed him bits of green paper. Running in circles; but looking enthused.
That is, I think, why television will never be our savior, our plastic Mother Mary,
our cup of water when we know we crave wine.
In truth, we do not live with a mask on.
All the world in not a stage, the men but actors. Not masks.
Rather we are covering ourselves with ignorance, covering ourselves with seclusion
Covering ourselves with the knowledge of the fact that we are at home
Gorging ourselves on the cheese and crackers of tiny fractions of our lives.
Our shame is not in that, which we do wrong,
It is in that which we hide beneath our new detachable sleeves. The fifth Ace that no one was meant to see. And somewhere in there we were meant to have a life but we got so caught up. So caught up in the big billboard that we missed the main attraction.
So caught up in our soap operas, our shiny new things, our thrift store finds,
Our late night binges, our last minute wishes, our superstitious, telepathic, homophobic, shameful, shameless half lives.
I sit and watch the remains of what was once my life and wish that if she must run, she could at least stop being enthused