In the conversation you had with your sisters and friends
over coffee and chitchat,
you described me as perfect, a gentleman
adorned with a cloak of eccentricity,
Tagged along by a shadow who has has never been
in the dark or seen anything but the light.
At this time, your accent lifts as you described me.
"Perfect gentlemen don't exist", everyone retorted.
So you go on and on about
this and about that
And this too and that.
Till even the least enthusiastic
Buys a ticket to watch me.

So I perform. I perform. Only this time
I wear no mask on the stage of enticement.
I laugh out loud and carry the bottles.
I sing out loud even when my voice is muffled.
I play along, like a skilled ocarinist.
I blab about life in the slums and the impending economic crunches,
i brag about my dreams and the few nights I don't snore.

In the same conversation I had with myself,
Sitting to a bottle, a moleskin and pen all by myself,

I tell myself how much of me hasn't changed,
How my thoughts never changed
Despite my unkempt beard and bad breath.

I tell myself how the-same I am,
Only this time, I'm wearing a different shirt
stained at the pocket with oil from yesterday's tofu fries.