when you feel like everyone's being nice to you

in hopes you'll leave them alone,

you already are alone,

at least in your mind.

 

It doesn't matter how they say 

they care about you to your face,

you'll always think they're whispering

when you're far away.

 

The thing is, these people are complex.

One day, they may speak to you curtly,

hoping for a break.

another, they are starved to speak to you,

because you're someone who would talk to them,

especially if you can keep their mind

off things at hand.

 

I don't know this first-hand,

well, i know it otherwise,

because I watch the people around me,

I watch how they speak, how they move,

and after awhile it's easy to tell,

whose using me to soothe

their own troubles.

 

I have a teacher,

who asked how I was

And I wondered why she cared.

Then I had a professor tell me

his college roommate was on watch

after a murder-suicide,

and it got me to thinking

how many other people understand

how I'm feeling second-hand-

who's pulled spouses, roommates, friends-

family through depressions and anxieties.

 

Who among us doesn't realize that

happiness is not a Kodak effect?

We are meh more than happy,

and some of us sad primarily.

And that is how we're supposed to be...

who else knows these things,

as well as than those who suffer?

 

Those who suffer with them.

 

So I smile when I see those two,

even if I have to fake it,

because faking it 

is the first step towards making it.