it’s the sound of small talk
between two plastic people —
the whole interaction
makes my entire body wince…
it’s the champagne laughs that accompany
the cell phone photo library show-and-tell-a-thon
— it’s like rainbow sprinkles in my overhearer’s ear
stop it…
stop it
please, just stop it
you’re an idiot, okay?
that’s why I don’t want to read your bullshit,
your candy flaccid garbage pomp!
the drivel gives me gas…
your giggles make me want to fart
yah, this person is just too damn pleasant and kind,
too squeaky-on-the-surface clean to be real, man…
mhm, and this person believes in a Neptune-magic
fairy-God who erected the Earth in thirteen hours
and turned the damn thing in late
as his high school science project,
and the bastard only got a C-
yeah, yeah
you’re awesome
so, tell me how to run my life
preach about this thing, this work-life-balance
— it’s Listerine on bleeding gums,
cool mint and carry on…
oh, I know you cry at night just like the rest of us
and you iron your silk ties with Netflix on in the background
and your Goodreads profile
always has the coolest five-star shit
yeah, yeah
you’re awesome
go ahead, tell me all about it
Garbage Notes:
I get so annoyed with these go-getters who act positive all the time, like nothing is wrong with the world and life is just firing on all cylinders for them. I don’t know about you, but I always feel like I’m trudging through quick sand. And it’s like all these people around me in public are acting like everything is amazing.
I remember working at an old job where I was face-to-face with the general public—overhearing the basic conversations between regular people—it always made me so sick. The trivial shit they’re concerned about. The humdrum garbage, where they all seemed to talk like they were the absolute center of the universe and no one could lay a finger on them.
I couldn’t get through a single day without someone bragging about their stellar career or their genius kids or how they miraculously lost five pounds or how the most brilliant surgeon on the planet just removed their giant mole or how their dog just got accepted to Harvard.
The title just sort of came to me. Candy because it’s always the most sickly sweet topics, lacking any real substance. Flaccid because they’re always bragging about the most lame and weakest shit. And garbage, because well, we all know what garbage means. And pomp because they’d always make a splendid public display of it.
So that’s where this one came from. I swear I’m not always this negative. But people in public really get to me sometimes. It’s that public face. The inability to express the ugly or the not-so-perfect. It creates a distance between us all and alienates those who are having a hard time, making us feel like no one else on earth could possibly understand.
Franco Amati 2023
Well said. The title is perfect, mate. I feel that way a lot. Social graces create a barrier between us and the real.
Yes, exactly -as if the entire world is auditioning for another f'd up reality tv show. Very well said