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One of the Slam poems I wrote recently:
The moment I step inside your view is the moment you’re supposed to realize that I’m lying to you.
In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever told the truth.
But you fail to recognize the lie that I’m convincing you with.
And I fail to recognize that the lie is convincing me with every passing moment and I hate that I build myself on tainted grounds.
And I feign those grounds.
And I play in those grounds.
And I reign in those grounds until I am no longer grounded.
I wish I could be grounded. Locked inside myself, forced to keep company with me, forced to live my reality, forced to really be me.
But man oh man this lie is laid out comfortably. The plush cushion of misconception, the woven web of fabrication, the elation found from a completely false station… I can’t believe this aberration but then again that’s the point… so sharp I tiptoe around the eggshells of reality, careful not to further disturb the careful placement of my lie’s alarm.
What harm would it do, I ask, to sweep the shells away and play with the reinvention of myself. I could play De Vinci in my own convincing.
But I think I’m too late. Wait. How can I conceive of how late I am when I’m lost in the conception of who I am? I am too drowned in the lie to rise above the surface so I sure face the eminent loss of this race against myself. But then again I’m also winning. I’m spinning this web of wonder, wondering if I’m the spider or the fly... or both.
As the spider I hide and cover my true self for fear that it might release a call for help. As the fly I struggle to scream but the fear leaves my voice useless and lifeless and my life is forfeit.
I forget that there is a true me and all I can see is the mask that I’ve created. The stated and dated faces… I’ve carefully planned to face the world with a preset persona.
And I know it.
I want to take the mask off but the face beneath it is formless, more Me, less the Me you know. You know nothing of the person now inside your view. Your viewpoint points you in the direction My lie told you to take, you’re taken by my faking, I see an advantage and like always… I take it.
I took you and you were looking right at me when it happened. It happens my lie worked yet again. And again I find a way to convince myself that I’m lying for a good reason.
And the reason is you.
And I convince myself that the lie is worthwhile because while I may not have myself, I have you. So I continue to lie within your view. I continue to lie to me and I continue to lie to you.
Because I’ve never told the truth.
This mask is held with so much glue that I could never separate it from my being and being this way continues to subjugate the slave I’ve made of me.
As the fly I whisper memories of who I am to myself in hopes that I may ground the spider and fly free. Free to be me, free to see, free to be seen, free to life truthfully.
So while someday I’ll remove this mask and show you who I am, for now I’ll cram myself inside this simulation. An imitation of what you and you and he and she and society think I should be. You see, that’s why I’m too late to play De Vinci in my own convincing. Television has already been my buttinski. It’s meddled so deeply in the weaving of me that the Celtic knots are strangling me.
So for now I’ll gasp for breath.
For now, I’ll continue to whisper to myself.
Now, I’ll dream of a someday creation. Facing the lie and lying down no longer. No longer hiding, but thriving, still hoping that the you who loves the lies in me…
will still lie with me…
will still love me.
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I'm never gonna know you now...
but I'm gonna love you anyhow 
-Elliott Smith
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