Backstage

Backstage

I sit before a reflection quiet and still,

Holding unspoken words yet to be spilled.

It’s another one of those self-imposed prisons,

One filled with deafening silence having no reasons.

It’s not just a temporary fix that I seek,

As I search within me for my memories deep.

To have lost all my dreams I held close before,

Seeing them slaughtered upon some butcher’s floor.

I ponder the reflection, this man that I see,

And question him as to what his future might be.

An actor mimicking meaningless words looking at me.

A clown rehearsing pantomimes wasting time, some ineffably.

The image watches as I move through the motions,

Applying times’ lotions, a makeup of tomorrow’s potions.

In the waning moments of this parallel world’s union,

The image becomes the man I see joining in communion.

But it isn’t to last, this make-believe world of chance,

Where the face in the mirror can no longer be enhanced.

Time, the creature we all run from shouting and panting alas,

Will strip the costumes of life and all will become the past.