Social Moth

Party Man; Social Moth

I love parties,
but have always been
disappointed by
their temporal limitations.

You spend
the first half hour
shyly wondering
whether you should have
come at all
because
you don’t know most of the people.

Then perhaps
you see someone
you know, and you
start a conversation.
Soon you are talking
to strangers
even though your mother
told you not to.

As the evening progresses,
inhibitions loosen,
and when things are running
smoothly,
and you are becoming
the life of,
the energy level
drops—
people start to leave.

So you settle into
an interesting conversation
that seems to be going
somewhere,
and the host must needs
bid adieu—
something mumbled
about sleep, work, morning.

Damn,
a rent in the cocoon,
ejection from the womb
of social ability,
into the reality
of the drive home;
contemplating
the things
you should have said,
and the things
you shouldn’t have said—
the brilliant thoughts
left unexpressed;
mangled sentences
that are never
to be edited into
their true form.

Doug Palmer 2006