lacquered smile

we are all mask traders
elegantly gliding in between
up to the point we can't tell them apart:
lie and reality
warping into one collective hallucination.

who do we think we're fooling
when we change one mask for another
thinking no one will see the cracks,
the pain, the exhaustion
behind the lacquered smile?

i'd call bullshit
but my new mask isn't broken in yet,
it's still a bit rigid round the edges of my thoughts
so i can't quite enunciate the words right.
every time i try it comes out as
"that's nice"(insert smile *here*)
when what I actually meant was
"I DON'T CARE. period"