Borderline

Everybody looks so ill at ease, so distrustful, so displeased
Running down the table, I see a borderline
Like a barbed wire fence strung tight, strung tense
Prickling with pretence, a borderline

Why are you smirking at your friend?
Is this to be the night when all well-wishing ends?
All credibility revoked, thin skin, thick jokes
Can we blame it on the smoke, this borderline?

Every bristling shaft of pride, church or nation, team or tribe
Every notion we subscribe to is just a borderline
Good or bad, we think we know, as if thinking makes things so
All convictions grow along a borderline

Smug in your jaded expertise
You scathe the wonder world and you praise barbarity
In this illusionary place, this scared hard-edged rat race
All liberty is laced with borderlines

Every income, every age, every fashion-plated rage
Every measure, every gauge creates a borderline
Every stone thrown through glass, every mean street's kick ass
Every swan caught on the grass will draw a borderline

You snipe so steady, you snub so snide
So ripe and ready to diminish and deride
You're so quick to condescend, my opinionated friend
All you deface, all you defend is just a borderline

Just a borderline
Another borderline
Just a borderline