Catastrophe
01: The Traitor – Sometimes envious, sometimes selfish with an appetite for biting off more than one can chew and keeps a knife up one sleeve; prone to giving in to certain temptations but may be overrun by guilt.

i. Acacia
Resulting indolence to change
Disparage those tiny flutterings
Better yet to ignore
Realize yourself alive in your ignorance
Be the better one
The moral one
The one most justified.

Traitor thinks thoughts of gold-like mirages
Poisoned skin against strange fire
It doesn’t burn but it hurts without touching
Surreal; an underestimation of the extent
Too close; too far
Disgust—she remembers well.

Lie through your teeth—
That’s your whiplash reflex;
Scuff out your mistakes
Blindfold your words
No one knows enough so it’s good enough
(Good enough)
It’s good enough for them.

Breathing today puts one foot in front of the other, no matter how harsh the metal burns
Through the soles of your bare feet you are commanded to dance:
Dance, descend, dance
The irrelevancy of the trouble you make for yourself—you don’t realize
The easiest solution: a tourniquet.

ii. Advice from a Crone
Weaving into song
Who is reality?
Prepare those troops
You’re going to arm them in the final eclipse of civility.
Prepare for dishonesty;
It’s the nuclear blast of your last defence
Corner the cat before it pounces
Shut off your own desires
Make them hate you—the shadowed friend, the traitorous one
The guilty one, perturbed.

iii. Status Quo
She says, “I still care, if anybody remembers.”
But no one listens
Better not to listen—
“I’m still human.”—
The abyss, the void.

It isn’t them.

It’s her.

Drawing closer, drawing near
Coagulate unshed guilt; lock them in fear
Polite society prefers not to see your immaculate
Sacrifice;
Brush off the glimmer of regret, jewelled things fading in the patch of
Hours, days, minutes:
Aim your arrow and aim it high
Shoot it through them, clean and true
Salvation through a cheat sheet check point
Your head over clouds:
The clearer path to higher ground.

Better forget me if you know what’s good for you
If it’s good enough for you
Then it’s good enough for me.

(A pause; exit stage left and the throngs applaud
Bow low, smile. Dip low.)

If you still remember what’s good for you.