We've never had a real convesation

We've never had a real conversation
just strings of words clipped from some other communication
and strong together
like a ransom note.

"oh hey, how are you, how've you been?"
the same quick-shot question reserved for friends that you
pointedly stayed out of contact with after
"accidentally" losing contact with them,
and that guy you met one time
who thought you would see each other a second time.

"I'm good, good. Yeah word is going well"
It doesn't matter whose lips those words leave, they're meant for ears of family members who you don't connect with
and that acquaintance who tries just a little too hard to to be a friend.

"I really liked your show, you were amazing!"
Said every person in attendance of a show whose performer they got to meet.

"Hey thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it, say, would you like a drink?"
This whole scene is a beer commercial, not a conversation.

---

"When you look at me i get butterflies in my stomach..."
If you had never heard that expression you would never describe it that way.

"...To the moon and back"
That's an arbitrary distance, and against a backdrop of star pocked infinity it's just insulting.

"I do"
Why, is someone asking?

"Love you"
You're just stilling yourself at this point, and that tells me a lot more about you.

"Unconditionally"
Whoever first expressed in words the notion of love
fucked up a lot of couples where someone
thoughts those words meant anything.

Your mouth is a trust, a treasury, 
and without actions to back it,
your words just get inflated.

---

These ready made blocks of pre-written prose
first fell from the lips of some lover or another
not now - but a long time ago.

You'd never know someone was able to be angry over getting the wrong anniversary gift if you hadn't seen it happen before.

You would never ask for half off when the waiter brought you fish instead of chicken even though you couldn't stop complimenting it the whole meal
- unless you knew someone had gotten away with it before.

---

"...What's your favorite colour?"
My favorite colour is the sound of preschool children listening to each other and not talking over one another in some kind of verbal dog-pile
- because if you asked the first person who asked that question, that's what the teacher would say.

"what's your sign?"
Something I don't have control of cross referenced with broad strokes of someone else's brush?
How protected do you feel
behind a wall of other people's bricks?

If you're not going to stop being safe,
if you're not going to get over being scared of the dark
and go where you haven't heard of people coming back from
then stop telling me things everyone has already heard...

Then just shut 
          the
                              f**k
                  up,
and let me listen to your heartbeat.
It's the only honest thing about you.