cacogen at the party

knew when you invited him/her
that there’d be that remote possibility
that the ornery part of them would come
popping out,
running amok all over the place &
offending indiscriminately,
as if it was spitting left & right
into everybody’s drink.

s/he is the type of friend who is true,
who doesn’t bullshit you,
who has always been there for you &
for whom, you know, you yourself would
be there for,
if that time were to arise,
but still, that doesn’t erase the plain fact
that at times (more often than not, when
being in public is concerned),
s/he can be quite the
colossal
asshole.

so you walk amongst the crowd
doing damage control
apologizing for your friend
to your friends,
deciding in your head just who the
fakest in the crowd is &
just how many of said individuals
you’d need to delete
in order to hone down this shindig &
make it something that would speak
honestly.

the harsh scene makes your favorite
horror movies look like
walks in the proverbial park &
what would have been so much more
easy & in fact, much more comfortable,
would have been a smaller get-together---
“maybe the most anti-social person at this
party is its host” remarks the elected
cacogen &
the both of you leave your conversational
corner, with hopes that the scheme you
mutually devised to get the rest of em’ out
of the house ASAP,
will be a winning one.