Have you ever stopped to consider how the ant feels when a giant pane of glass floating in the air beams pure sunlight into its carapace?

I lie a lot.

It's a personal thing

I lug around behind me

Like a commuter at the airport 

I don't lie about people. 

I lie about facts.

The color of my eyes,

The scale pointing north of 300.

I bite the truth and chew it up,

Letting my gnashors tramp and stamp

The words into new, exotic locations

And spit them out wholesale 

I once lied that my dad had met Buzz Aldrin

On a secret CIA mission to protect

Tony the Tiger from terrorists 

Planting Nokias strapped to explosives.

I remember fibbing my way

Into the ravishing girl from Lunch hour's

Hidden secrets,

With halitosis whispers of worship

And wisteria moans.

I could've told her the truth,

That she was cute,

And I was a virgin,

And that together we could kill the kids inside.

I lie because it's more fun

To take the verisimilitude of the world

And wrap it into a doughy ball 

And pound it with mochi hammers 

Sit back and taste the ChatGPT generated responses

That succor to the flames in our ribs

That flutters when we get the next medal of honorable discharge. 

I lied about my medication making me see shadows on the walls

I lied about my fingers shaking along Coke cans.

I lied about missing him in a heartbeat that stopped a long time ago

I lied about my past just as surely 

As someone else might comment on 

A pair of baby shoes in a window. 

I take the truth and wrap a ribbon made of vocal chords, tie it up nice and neat,

And give you something prettier instead.