No Filter on the World

In the room 

full of people 

I look at my success.

Clapping for me. 

Glorifying. 

Shaking hands. 

Smile.

It was a success. 

Wait. 

Do I know any of you?

Who are all these people?

Coming to celebrate me?

Take off the tie, 

throw down the mask

get out the room 

as fast as the last

this isn't me,

I just can't see 

where I went 

when I wasn't looking.

Run down the road, 

take a sharp right, 

down the blinding 

New York street lights.

Looking around I see 

Laugher and Smiles, 

but none of this is for me. 

Take off the mask, 

throw down the tie,

walk in the bar, 

head on by,

look in the faces of 

all the passerbys 

who are they now, 

when no one's there to count. 

If the world could look with me, 

and sit down to see what I see, 

we would talk about the pressure

set down by society, 

we would notice the gaunt faces, 

and all the worry lines, 

we would look at the shadows,

cast under the eyes.

But if the world could sit down, 

and drink with me, 

we would also notice, 

those little rare 

unhappenings.

How the mother whose eyes, 

look swollen from a late night, 

will look at her child, 

and give a flickering smile.

How the man over there, 

with the worn out hair, 

helped that woman with her bag, 

while the crowd shoved on pass.

We would notice those moments, 

of unmasked faces,

where the true self revealed 

over the worn over faces.

And me and the world, 

the world whom I knew, 

Who wasn't some stranger, 

just clapping for me.

Me and the world, 

would watch as the 

city slowly lost 

its filter.