Lotus Eater

Lotus eater

Your life is a theater

You can play any role

Hope you don’t forget the shape of your soul

You aimed for first, no matter the race

A fool to believe you were on the chase

When you should have been saying grace

So you left us all behind

To collect rust

Ceryneian Hind

Your heart, which we watered, is now naught but dust

The spark that ignited your home

Lures you into the city

You sent them all into shock

Walking electricity

You paid your respect to the ones who set the precedent

Then you stole their crown because you would not settle for president

Crashing the charts, a beautiful accident

Magnificent, in your element

They go crazy for you, you transform the stadium into a mental hospital

Your tongue is a scalpel, your wordplay surgical

Bodied your competition, had a funeral

Their corpses ice-cold, menthol

The dirt they put on your name is exactly what you needed to grow

You jeered, “If you lose, don’t get sore and act like a martyr

Crushing everyone in your way, pestle, and mortar

Washed them all out, you were tidal

Emperor, you earned your title

Sipping that silver nectar

Among your organs, the blossoms gather

The sepals unravel to the melody of your laughter

The applause showers you like hail

You are the king, the one they all hail

Blissfully unaware that your scepter is soiled

To the madness, you are a magnet

Like the earth’s core

A magnate

They itched to see you bleed, you just keep dripping ichor

They try to take you down, but their efforts are all in vain

You are a titan, molten gold in the veins

Setting the stage on fire

Telling them you never tire

Liar, liar

Draped in jewels

Yet they are rhinestones, so are you still a winner?

Flaying yourself under the fluorescence

Tell me, was it worth the price of your innocence?

Member of the ruling caste

Yet you are hollow, a ghost in a plaster cast

Yes, you cast your own shadow

And it is so long and dark that no more sun shines through your window

As they cultivate your glorious display

What little is left of you decays

You watch yourself in the mirror

As your sepals and petals

Wither away

Yet the stamen in your sternum compels you to stay

You were a proletariat

You play dress-up with the bourgeoisie

Is a mask all you will ever be?

Secretariat, the finish line is all you see

Every day you grow more unstable

Knowing that if you do not play the part

The masquerade that bet on you will just as easily tear you apart

Hunt you down like Dianthus until you drop, you fear

So is it any wonder that one day you stumble

Your crying cannot drown out the booing from the stables

The track you tore up has eroded into a river of your tears

After all, no one can run from their years

Trapped behind bars of your own making; caught in a dilemma

They praised your creativity, but they say there is no more value in the original

You wanted to make artistry

They emaciate and mosaic your body to get them more money

How criminal

You crawl among the thorns, searching for the key

Used to mock the silverback, now you are the dancing monkey

Your swan song echoes on a broken record , how pitiful

Infatuated with an industry that thrives on traitors

No better than slave traders

Rotting under barbed wire

Backfire, backfire

You are out of ammunition, young musket

You could try and repent, but they have no prophet

Your career is flatlining and there is no first aid kit

The choice is yours: Commodity or casket?

They will only provide for you if you make them a profit

A prisoner of the petals, but at least you have your designer outfit

Remember how the crowd begged for you to slay them?

Your performance your scythe

How you would maim them

They clung onto you for the claim to fame

You’re the real sucker even though they were the remora

As soon as you sunk they swam away with the next big fish with a big name

You butchered yourself for a rigged game

You limp out of the door

For like any good racehorse

You must be put down if you are lame

So you left us all behind

To collect rust

Ceryneian Hind

Your heart, which we watered, is now naught but dust

Flaying yourself under the fluorescence

Tell me, was it worth the price of your innocence?

Lotus eater

They closed down the theater

I warned you if you play the role

You might just forget the shape of your soul….