Soap Star Joe
Sometimes when I'm watching you, I can tell that you're putting on a show--that you're playing it up for dramatic effect, that you're trying to get some reaction out of me. Trying to manipulate me into whichever corner you want to trap me in. I wonder why you can't just come out and be an honest guy about it. About your intentions toward me. What it is you want from me. Who it is you would like me to be so I can avoid all the bullshit mind games and cut to the chase, putting on the mask you'd like best.
Why must I be someone else for you Joe? What's wrong with me that draws you to me yet inspires you to change what it is that you have found--make me over into someone else entirely--someone I might not like as much as I like me--but who you seem to prefer. Someone not real, full of pretense, and full of false cheer. A force-upon smile taut and painful, too much to believe.
And your plastic smile and your rose-colored statements are too transparent, but not transparent enough that I don't fall for them. They're gilded just enough to paint me into that corner, onto that stupid TV studio set with fake walls and cheap furniture and no soul. Once I'm trapped there, I have no one to blame but me. When I'm just as soulless as your world and your dreams--as you, then I have no one to blame but me, myself, and I. I saw this coming, rising in the horizon, saw your army of one approaching, your phantom heart materialize, your real face peek through just that once. And I followed you anyway.
soap star joe copyright 2001 flowerboy productions