some days

Some days, I still feel like the last
dancer at a masquerade ball.
The adults are talking but 
I’m too busy playing musical chairs
for a seat at their table to listen.
Will someone please notice my gentle, 
dainty hands, my open arms?
Every generous act I’ve ever done
I’ve only done to whiten my teeth.
Maybe America has done a bigger 
number on me than I first thought.
I don't know how to say congratulations
without itching for a robbery.
It's predictable. Vain. And above all,
uninteresting. I’m bringing nothing new
to the table. Maybe that’s why I have
to compete for a seat. Ain’t it funny,
that one way or another, I always get 
what I want, just never the way I want it?
Then again, what is timing if not a myth? 
I promised myself no more poetry.
Romance is for juveniles and the elite
and I’m neither—or so it goes.
Yet isn't it more satisfying to whine
than learn? It’s easier to see an angel 
as a vulture than let yourself 
believe in the divine.
Faith takes bravery but I’m 
still too faint of heart. 
Haven’t you fallen for me yet? 
Patriarchy’s perfect little wet dream?
Which is the greater fraud,
my grin or my tongue?
Underneath the November daylight,
which will crumble first?