Small Talk, Sharp Edges

You ask how I am

In a voice too bright

I hold the right smile

At the wrong height

The pause gets longer

Than I know what to do

Your laugh lands sideways

And I move with it too

I hear the meaning

Before it is meant

Every easy sentence

Finds a place to cut

I keep my face open

While my body shuts

You say it was nothing

Just filling the air

But something in the timing

Keeps touching me there

I answer gently

I leave no mark

Every easy sentence

Finds a place to cut

I keep my face open

While my body shuts

Do not make me explain

What a silence can do

Some words arrive clean

Then split into two

Every easy sentence

Finds a place to cut

I stay almost pleasant

And take too much