Unsure of Myself

I try to prepare for the end of year meal, stringing
miniature beads on fishing line should do the trick
keeping my fingers busy and my mind at ease, but
it isn’t working, I have already started to turn into
Quasimodo, the hunchback, tonight

Already my eyes are out of focus - I feel unsure of
myself, I know my presentation is not the right thing
and I cannot blame my colleagues for thinking that
I am an idiot, being with a critical group is torture to
me, my ideas anathema to them

I should be used to it, yet I cannot feign interest in
desultory conversation, general topics constitute
danger to my consciousness stream, whenever
I see an ice floe of shared interest and try to
leap upon it, another’s expression kills it

It is but once or twice a year this visitation comes
upon me, surely I am old enough to carry my cross
of ineptitude calmly – I wish I could be Alice with
them – but no, I turn into a stone troll during a
group activity - such is my cross:

Stupidity, feeling more self-conscious than Agnes
Nitt and Magrat Garlick combined – and I have no
inner Perdita to sustain me when facing all my
colleagues combined