ShaughnessyNever Enough

Porcelain composure, a polished pantomime, I'm running diagnostics on the currency of time. A textbook execution of a smile that isn't mine, A low-res JPEG copy of a life that's so sublime. I catalog their artifacts, their heirlooms, their resorts, And stitch a borrowed narrative from their annual reports. My accent is an acquisition, my posture's an impostor, I'm a self-appointed scholar on a borrowed-money roster. Harmony swells, then glitches and distorts We're just ghosts in their garden, we're weeds in their lawn, We're chasing a sun that was already gone. We're building a life on a beautiful lie, With a borrowed reflection in a dead man's eye. I memorize the family crests, the passive-income psalms, And hide the frantic frequency inside my sweaty palms. Their lineage is listed stock, their history's an asset, Mine's a half-told eulogy I haven't written past it. My Winners-brand bravado is my only coat of arms, My shield against the gravity of their financial charms. A cheap translation of their blue-blood pedigree, This whole damn performance is my only currency. I'm a guest star in their memories, a footnote in their book, Just trying to reverse-engineer the way their future looks. We're just ghosts in their garden, weeds in their lawn, Chasing a sun that was already gone. Building a life on a beautiful lie, With a borrowed reflection in a dead man's eye. He never made the dinner. Too much work on his plate. She stretched the dollar till it snapped under the weight. I'd sit on the landing... a silent, little referee... Just praying for a bigger number to come and set us free. Was I... wrong?