They give me a description of you,
I have rarely engaged with that man,
Observed him, yes, from afar, amongst a
Beguiled sea, drunken cluelessness, people,
Mouths open, in need of a fairy tale, I was a child
Amongst them, yours, aching, longing, resigned,
Confused.
I saw the charm, the smiling face, the theatrical gestures,
Listened to the changing voice, felt the applause in my bones,
The stomping feet, the whistling, the name that I dismiss,
In my ears, the refusal, yours, the shoving it in my face, yours,
The shutting me out, absorbing me, getting rid of me,
Not allowed into your world, your world was everywhere,
I provided you, we did, with everything, sucked out,
In the wings, backstage, in sheer darkness, burning,
Along your edges, behind your deadening wings,
You, on your own pyre, eating your applause, eating women,
Stabbing them in the hearts, playing with fire, starting fires
And running away from them, you are afire and need to see
The world burn.
They put you on a pedestal. You acted so well.
They are still holding your body, holding it up,
Up there, amongst the mould, the rot, in blindness,
They see the man they want to see, the one that you saw too,
In their eyes, through their mouths and you adjusted yourself,
Reduced yourself to that one persona, playing it, played,
Dead, deceased, on and on, giving them what they want,
What you wanted them to believe, who they wanted to love,
In need, you fed them, fed yourself, with decay, from without,
Within, deeper into the fabric of your lies, your life, performance,
It was all a game, not your reality, not us, we were supposed to bring
Prosperity, money, abundance, and leave you alone.
And you suck and sucked, and it’s never enough,
Nobody gets the actor’s attention, nobody gets the director’s support,
You made fiends out of us, we would get the man,
Not after he walked offstage, no, other things happen then,
Who steps back into his cage of disappointments, the home he built and rejected, drunk,
Smelling like way too many women at once, like betrayal, he doesn’t even
Know the word, that’s a thing only women do, not him, no,
In this very moment, the man without a stage,
The tormentor, the screamer, throwing with knives,
Bathed in neglect, the fucker, the firestarter, the ignorer,
No, that can’t be, he’s so charming, he’s so talented,
You make me sick, you, your skin, your smell, the way you move,
The way you grab and take and exploit and regurgitate,
The beater, violence in every pore, hands reaching for the belt,
Applause, applause, children on the floor, applause, applause,
Children shielding one another, applause applause,
What a feast he had outside of this house,
Children in an empty kitchen, and he reeks of debauchery,
Out with you then, get away, get onstage, play the part,
I don’t want any of it, I don’t need a part, a good actor,
A good director, I poured my limelight onto the body
That created me, the body that slowly disappeared,
The disappointed body, the body that cheated,
The body that abused, the poisonous body,
The body that I could trust to overstep my boundaries,
The body I could trust to be violent, to be explosive,
To be destructive, oh, yes, I could always rely on that,
The viciousness, a circus animal, there it is,
Yes, jumping out, lashing out, projecting, the aggressor,
Seven sins in one body, that was our stage,
That was our life and play, fear, stomping up the stairs,
Fear, fighting back, funerary fantasies, despair,
Wanting to escape, crumbling, drained,
Locked doors, without common ground, oh, yes,
It found you well, didn’t it, the irony, fear,
Our lights exposed you so well.
Croque-Melpomene 