The thing is is that....

...we sometimes don't tell the truth.

______

IS IS

The thing, the way we look directly at
each other, the alibi, the qualifier,
stumble-john of a funky lame excuse
improvised with hardly any thought
beyond the fact that you’re not going to play,
flimsy line as solid as a stone
yet transparent, a feeble little tale,
emergency exit lie of necessity
that we’ve all used in love or otherwise
to squirm away from something genuine
because, well, the thing is is that
there is a fiction that we must attend,
a fabrication we simply cannot miss.