Out of Synch

Today, I’m out of synch.

The words don’t quite flow right,
                I don’t quite flow right.
And when I get up to dance at the end of the day,
It’s all slightly off
                                There’s not that rhythm to the sway.

As though there’s this natural rhythm
A shared pattern
A heartbeat, if you will
That determines when we speak in conversation
the track of our thoughts
the dance of two beings when we meet
And on any other day, I could be up there with the rest of them
Swinging through some jokes
A salsa through a flirt
Even a waltz through something more serious

But today, not today
I’m off.  A different time signature, or a faulty metronome, just a fraction of
                a second behind   everyone,       everything
else.
I can find the flow.
I’m just behind the beat
My tapping toes are at odds with that communal heartbeat.

And when I speak
And I try to make an impression
I try to spark bright  but not too hot
I’m just
  not quite
in the right
tempo.
I answer a question that wasn’t asked and was never going to be.
I make a joke based on a frame of reference familiar to no one in the room.
And I wonder if I’ve caused offence or just bewilderment and I assume the worst and I retreat and I hide behind a forced twee smiling shell and I worry and I shake and I stay silent for fear of anything and everything that I say and haven’t said and then it’s too late and too much and I just have to go.