can’t you ever just
for once fucking
come out and say
what you mean and
mean what you say?
do you even have a heart
under all those cries
of wolf, wolf, looking
for your Little Red
Riding Hood? or does a
clockwork ticker beat
itself to death inside
your Tik-Tok chest?
fee, fie, foe, fun. I
smell the blood
of a charlatan.
I’m so sick
of your roundabout
hints and overly ironic inversions.
you’ve gotten so good
at portraying hypocrites,
liars and jerks
that I can’t help but think
you must secretly be one
yourself. how else
would you know their
lines so well?
all the times I cried
over someone who
knew me as well
as anyone ever did
and never once
opened that book
in which you long ago pressed
your soul like a flower.
do you even remember
what it smelled like?
I don’t know which is
the bigger crying shame:
that I took your great and powerful pantomime
to heart, or that you
couldn’t ever quite out
with that dread spotlight.
R. Brookes McKenzie 