Every night you can paint me the fool:
with wide white smiles,
under a punctuated brow.

I can feign happiness,
without expression.

My face burning red
like this ball nose still.

What would be said of an actor
and his stage,
without a performance?

The show persists itself,
and thusly must keep going on.

Line, after practiced line.
Tangled in a web.
With spiders closing in.

And their laughter approaches as a storm:
teaching me humility, in all of its forms.

Flushed egg white dripping down my face,
as the ink, shameful, sinks into permanence.

The spot light flickers,
as the dust, suspended, sinks like a swift snow.

I should of known, fame

like love

doesn’t last forever.