of the tongue
               and body
           as it beats
              the demons
                 of my own silence to a gentle hum –
  a drunk laced
   representation
    of what the watching eyes
                                        desire,
            ­                            crave,
                              ­          emulate
                                          in their sacred spaces –
      center stage
     with every performer
         abroad this conditioned
               disillusion –
     how it masks
      all the confusion
       for those that
         jumped in early –
   the lights
    look so friendly
   when you need them,
      but it's you
        who feeds
            them –
          and you die
    without knowing it,
                 you cry
    without showing it –
    mourn, in distractions,
      what could have been;
      what could have been
          if you didn't have
             to keep on
                       searching –

    the pen marks
   rely on the same security,
       lost in its
        contrived purity –

           the light is blinding,
            but it keeps us from
  rewinding,
  reminding
    our hearts of the pain
    or the game,
all the same –

wanting too much
for no good reason -

Prep me for surgery.
I don’t know what’s happening.
This is an emergency.
A medical mystery.
Here’s my consent in writing.
My heart is gone, picked up and left.
Find me a new one.
Then sew it in my chest.

I am the Tin Man.
Colored hearts on my sleeve.
Drinking from an oil can.
Empty as can be.
With a map of misguided direction.
And the burning of my isolation.
I am the Tin Man.
Broken like you see.

I no longer have the heart to love.
Of course you refused and denied.
Wanting the things I couldn’t give.
You kicked me to the curbside.
How sad it must be.
Being the name no one will miss.
But I’ll mark you down on my list.
Even if it hurts to reminisce.

My joints are rusted through.
The hinges scream and grind.
Damage was all we really knew.
Tearing through body and mind.
The things that were stolen.
We now must replace.
At the bottom of the stairs.
And in the lines we erased.

Put me back together.
Give me back my skin.
I’d rather die from a broken heart.
Than live as a piece of tin.
Send a pulse to the vein.
Tune the drum at my core.
I am not an empty frame.
The Tin Man is no more.