They call it confidence
but it’s an angle grinder.
A room fills with noise…
laughter too loud,
stories inflated to clear hierarchy,
hands clapping backs
that aren’t injured yet.
Data corruption phase.
Words stop meaning what they denote.
“I’m fine” means don’t look.
“That was nothing” means log nothing.
Every sentence routed through peers
before it’s allowed to exist.
I try to read the system live
and hit static.
Inputs falsified.
Outputs symbolic.
The process refuses inspection
while being watched.
Later…
hours, days, drinks removed…
the truth leaks like coolant.
Timelines reassemble.
What was bravado resolves into fear.
What was cruelty resolves into cover.
What was silence resolves into work
someone else absorbed.
They call this bonding.
I call it deliberate obscuration.
I don’t wear a clearer lens.
There is no lens.
There is just the absence
of the blur they rely on.
So I wait.
I collect fragments.
I let the performance finish itself.
Then I lay the pieces on the table:
inputs,
outputs,
delays,
deviations.
The shape appears
whether anyone agrees or not.
This is why poetry is dangerous.
Not because it exaggerates…
because it preserves sequence.
Post it to the wrong person
and they recognize themselves
mid-performance,
mid-lie,
mid-deflection.
The fragments reassemble without permission.
A friend recoils.
A follower ghosts.
The agreed-upon blur thins,
and what’s left is only what was always there:
sequence without mercy,
clarity without company.
- UpsilonA