The Escape Artist

 

We created all of this.

We thought our needs

had called for it.

Convinced ourselves to eat the lie

and drink the tears of suicides.

The look in our hollow eyes,

like stickmen stuck

in better times.

We thought we won,

but then we died,

with voices raised up to the sky.

 

I woke from dreams

I thought were mine,

afraid I might have lit the fire

that burned the world clean of desire,

now black and grey

my memory’s pyre.

 

I climbed up high,

stretched out my arms

and begged God to

erase the scars

of life that I had lived to die.

I reached my hands

up to the sky.

To catch the clouds,

to save my soul;

I stepped off into the unknown.

 

We created all of this.

We dreamed for it to exist.

We didn’t know

and didn’t care,

we tied the rope

and kicked the chair.

For those who try their hardest

and win

are the Escape Artists.

 

I’m reaching up

past what I see,

don’t ask me to let go.

I’m holding on

to something that I’ve never known.

This paradise we made was all a lie

and I don’t plan to die here,

trapped inside.

 

I’ll pick the locks,

I’ll scale the walls,

I’ll step off stage,

next curtain call.

I’ll shake my chains,

I’ll disappear,

between heartbeats

and you will know that I was here,

by how I escaped into the sky.

I will leave behind

an Exit sign.

 

HG – 2017