Red Curtain
A poem I wrote in the form of a play. Based on my (pathetic) attempt to woo a girl. I later came to find out that she was already seeing someone while this happened, so perhaps it was for the best.
Moments before the show commences. The lead is interrogating the mirror, as if it were responsible for its shortcomings.
LEAD: The last roll call, before the show commences,
Where scripts and costumes are stitched with last minute amendments,
While I’m on standby, as the lead role,
Not the first sight, but this time it's right
As I hoist my poise upon the highest pole
To ascertain the red curtain that I’m in control
With an unbeknownst step, a confidant stride,
No, a precise march towards the objective at hand:
To perform the play on stage as planned.
Open curtains. The act opens with the lead's humble entrance, still engrossed in the size of the audience.
LEAD: I hear them shouting, they call me out
To drag me on, a pinata full of butterflies waiting to be ripped apart.
I still hear them, playing a serenade meant solely for me
As if it were my turn, my monologue, my soliloquy
To serve as setting for the story to come
A biased sound that can only make the ears numb,
An incoherent bloodshed, a confused jumble of nonsense.
I don’t know what to make of it, because it has already been made
And so I’ll deliver it as far as it can before it becomes close to a tirade.
The script dissolves and so does the show
Is this how it's supposed to go?
I’ve asked the lead to perform as we planned
Yet still it remains with the script in hand!
Its been caught in a choke hold,
Frozen on an old road where it once roamed,
Taken aback by the speech to come.
It was destined to be a proposal, a declaration of sorts,
But how could it bring itself to without mutual support?
And so the ship sailed to arrive at closed ports,
As the lead curls up into a ball on stage, not knowing how to comport.
LEAD: An onslaught, the crime scene gives light on stage
The death of a thousand tomatoes
What for? The audience shouldn't know the script
And still its not a total trainwreck
So what for? Are these merely premature?
With the way witches talk I can't be so sure
Wondering which is the right one:
The sock with coal or the sock with none.
bleeding out from the knife throw
red tears from somewhere, like I’d know
maybe clots from long ago
from infected cells that were too slow
LEAD: And so the curtain draws near
The first act is almost to a close
Does it all stop here?
Or does the audience ask for a repose?
One-way questions that don’t have friends
Lead me down the road in search of threads
To string these events together in a neat fashion,
Interpolating with false talks and the sorts
As I search for the fabric called “passion”
Destined to cover this box full of remorse.
LEAD: I wait here, forever still,
Frozen in time with the curtains, until moved by the director’s will.
Curtains close.