stage fright crippling me over again
they want me to perform & pour my blood,
my guts, onto buckets
on the stage,
the word raining down like the bubonic plague upon virgin ears.
but, oh god, the vultures raging inside my stomach,
their prickly wings of thorns &
cactus needles flapping &
poking &
swelling me up,
my hands sweating, a taciturn nightmare sweat that
disintegrates
into the glare of the spotlight upon fragile,
pockmarked, poetry stricken me,
my voice quiquiquiverrrring & stumbling onto the words that
riiing arrrrrrrrouuuuuuund a rooosy, a pocketttful of...
and my mind is a vast space of Liquid Paper blank,
all the lines that rhymed & chimed & weaved
into a poem escaping from the vents of my
hallucination,
waving hand motions for lack of any words
my breathing quickening into a pant because i'm
running running running out of time
my voice rising into a shreak in panic,
the audience watching & tearing & shredding me up
on the open pit stage, until...
breathe, just breathe... the lights stealing my last breath...
the mike stand abandoned, there they go
carting off my
humiliated
remains after a frail 15 minutes of wasted fame
heightened by the far off sounds of a mild applause.
and who's to follow out on the stage? another
victim
lined up against the firing squad