clown

So much for sacrifice, the gray surrender of every street. So much for daylight, the tethered chain of rain obscures the sky. The words spent for words once more, sad equivalencies and unfaced truths. You fall and fall and fall again. These sticks and stones that bruise and burden only there for laughs. These mistakes that happen just to make you.

My hands are cold and the room is dark. The television tells its jokes and sells its wares. All my clothes are old and worn. I am lost in the ways of your world. It is funny because I am deadly serious. It is funny because the pieces just won't fit. There is nothing left to give away. The curtain falls and I never made the stage.

The pratfalls are fixed but the pain is certain. Every spill and every laugh leave a little less. The show goes on until it doesn't. The clown may strive, the clown may struggle-- it's only funny when it hurts. There is no art, there is no magic. Only broken bones and baggy trousers. Only the hilarity of your dreams beaten to death.