a dream of puppets

a dream of puppets

(everything is a dream this year because I’ve managed to become quite ill just as the event started again, and my fevers have me uncertain I am making any sense at all)

it’s a strange sort of sentience,

this half-life of ours, these glances out into

an audience that shifts and moves in darkness,

never quite resolves into individual faces, can not speak to us,

explain why we have been sentenced to dance on these strings,

claps and screams by turns, learns somewhere in the middle of

the show that this is no farce, too late to save itself, certainly

with no thought to saving us, the hapless bringers of its

destruction

but we have no bellies to fill, no hunger or thirst for harm

to the flesh we are pursuing, no hearts to hold either hatred

or mercy for these creatures who laugh merrily and then

begin to run for their lives when they realize what

the game truly is

we are but the ones who dance at the ends of the strings

and our heads are not carved to tilt back

to turn far enough to see behind

or above ourselves

we have been created so that we are unable to see

who holds our strings

we simply dance

hold out our hands to grasp

chase, run down the prey,

that our painted mouths have no way to consume

have you ever stopped to wonder

if we too can feel fear

we wonder if this is fear

we are feeling

when our bodies make that clattering noise

that scares you so

we don’t know any other word

to describe it

but it certainly isn’t

anything good