Prompted poetry: things people say

I drafted this trifle near the beginning of NaPoWriMo; at this point I can’t recall where the prompt came from. I tried to do a few clever things here with line breaks but don’t know if I carried it off.

people often say things
they don’t mean
mean things
they don’t say
coil in their minds
smooth-tailed serpents
poised without
pity