The Jesters Sonata

Balls in the air. Juggler of emotions.

I am torn between ending it all, and starting over to try again,

because the end of a muzzle seems like a headache, but also, the pill.

I pace back and forth until noon, then I realize its midnight.

No sleep until the witching hour, for it is where I am most awake.

“Eat something you bastard,” they say, yet I am not hungry for whats on their menu.

Peanut butter on bread, spread unevenly. No milk.

A moonlit snack becomes a meal. A tear becomes a bath.

A thought becomes another episode that I must binge until its very end.

What a cliffhanger.

Finally, a feast that I can eat. Hungry, for more.

I am tortured and mocked by my internal struggle, but I don’t want to miss the commercials, because there could be something that I want to buy.

I offer a facelift in the mirror. Then wash away its filth.

The voices all speak the same language, yet they’re foreign to me, and I don’t understand them, but I listen anyways because the sound of silence is deafening.

The translated captions will have to do.

“Walk it off, you’ll be fine,” they say, yet when I do so, the thorn bushes outside scrape against my skin, tearing and pulling at my weak meaningless flesh.

My insides are now exposed, and I lock the door for protection.

Why would they encourage me knowing I would fail?

Am I merely a vessel for their amusement, until the carnival closes down?

A red nose they make me wear. Am I forced to be their clown?

I dance, I sing, I play. I must entertain them until they are bored with me.

Only then, bloody, broken, and tired can I wipe away the paint.

I fall asleep to realize that I was never really, awake…