How we / the poets / sit in loud rooms and laugh because our heads are louder rooms / busy dinner parties / and the guests are only there to spill drinks and to watch us clean the mess and paint it into stanzas / I guess we're only living if we're dying to a degree / confessions with makeup on / they love this shit / consume it with a famished belly / forgetting the fruit is just painted red and orange / but it’s still rotting beneath titanium dioxide / they just digest and clap / smile with paint in their teeth / and for a moment the rotting stalls / the decay becomes a gentlemen / laying out its hand / guiding you beyond the noise / the dinner party / the rot / so you step to the front of the stage like the forgotten main character / and you accept the roses / you bring them home and place them in a vase / you think / this is living / and then they decay / and you think / this is poetry