clown

why can't you see me?

I’m in a glass box, but you can’t see me. I watch you look, want your gaze to catch just this once. Is my cage made of stone? Is that why? Fetal position, I try to scream, but the sound just echoes back to me. Is this a window, or will the curtain blow right over my face?

I’m a circus freak, a dancing elephant, an acrobat on fire. What will make you blink an eye? Ask the right questions, maybe you’ll get the right answers. I wonder if you know why there’s blood under my nails, hair in my mouth.

Look at me, look at the wall, look at the bug circling your head. Look through me, look past me, I’m a specimen pinned to a board, and I want you to examine me. Crack the box wide open, cleave my skull in two, see what’s there waiting.

I can’t lose someone I never had, and yet the loss is crushing. Contradictions, confusion, the vice constricting.

On my merry-go-round, round and round. Thoughts and thoughts I wish would drown. Beyond the sky, beyond this trivial day, for a watchful gaze, I pray. A peeking eye, a glimmering star, a sign from cosmos so very far.

Round and round and round and round, I’m crouching in my box upside down. Left and right, it’s all the same. Nothing’s up, and nothing’s down, and I’m forever just your clown.