The curtain now has fully closed-
So why am I still on this stage
Declaiming words I never wrote.

Why am I in fancy costume, with
Heavy makeup on my face
To hide the wrinkles of my failings
And paint me as a thespian.

Cast in a play they say I’ve written
With a pen that's never touched my hand
And a last act that I’ve never seen.

I haven’t learned the blocking yet,
So I don’t know which way to move
Or which door I should exit through
And what will be my final lines.

As lights go down from the Interval
The audience regains their seats
To watch me in the final scene.
  ^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
It’s over so I bow to scant applause
And no one comes to hand me flowers.
I stumble as the lights go slowly out,
And make my way from memory
To my dressing room down a dusty hall
Where I will take this garish makeup off
And walk home as the girl I really am.
                        ljm

You are on a very long list
of those who can’t though
they persist.

Learn the lesson of Achilles
heel: there's something that doesn't want you here.

You hold tightly the images
of misguided faith, role
models and illusory joy.
But graven images topple
as slow as dry rot and
Pandora quietly fills your
box of toys.

Your house is projected
and frozen in time.
Twenty layers of
wallpaper are peeling
your mind.

Rooms untouched like
100-year-old Mason
jar preserves. You can't
eat fruit kept for so many
years.

Your choice of worlds
kept the patterns; no
new beginnings mean
the same old ends.
You may not break all
the rules, but you sure
make them bend.

Grace seemed to touch
you as you walked a
mile or two seemingly
content. But no matter
how amazing the grace
was, you can't be where
you never went.

As long as scapegoats
hang on crosses all along
this highway like rows of
pigs hanging bloodless at
the slaughterhouse, and
as long as Western
religious pop culture icons
and other social images
replace what is real, the roadblocks and washouts
will continue to keep you
there. Achilles protected everything but his heel.


© 2025 Daniel Tucker

Sometimes I wish for the chance to be great
Some opportunity where I can test my metal
And find my fate
If it’s gonna come
It’s coming late
Maybe the problem is
That I wait
Whoever waited
To be great?  
Nobody you’ve heard of, I’m sure
The suggestion, itself, is absurd

~
Refraction
Love passes through
And changes
Direction
Let it hold sway
The heart leans toward catastrophe
In the blue headlights
Of parenthood
Mom and dad
Suspended from a pivot
Their offspring
Asleep on a sunbeam
~

I see the shape of things
As they shift
And slowly change.

I feel the weight it brings
As they chisel
And carve their names.

As the clouds move through their lives
They stretch, and pull apart.
No cloud will ever be the way
It was back at its start.

Maybe we are as those clouds,
Reshaping as we go.
No need to be ashamed nor proud.
Simply travel where winds blow.

Maybe we could learn from them,
Who exist but do not fight.
Face reality with grace, and then
Do the same in the windy night.