I held the smoking gun.
I saw the demons tie him down.
I spoke without a sound.
I've slept with secrets caught between a wall of doubt,
and the ambulance was a weighted serenade lulling me in and out of sleep.
I am a convicted man.
I have felt what God forbid I touch lest I slip into the wolves' lair.
Lock the gates. Malicifient is right outside.
Watch the sheep, a doubting Thomas is all she needs.
(Who is worse the witness or the felon,
If what is done can never be spoken of?)
I was the circus clown.
I paint my face a pastel white.
Enslaved to entertain.
Cheap thrills and tricks to make you laugh
while you can see what's coming.
I am the animal.
I curse and howl in my cage which has become my hiding place.
At the mercy of a man wearing fur and knives complacently.
Feed the lambs, without direction we'll devour ourselves.
Dress the wounds and cover up our wicked thoughts.
(Severed tongues hold secrets until the grave.
Now, watch him go do his stunts throughout the ring.)
I was the kill hung up by my legs. I am chaos.
You were the rope my fleeting escape, the blindfold.
I was the shepherd, mislead by the sheers, the clean cut.
I am your gaze, bewildered and staged and slighted.
Another notch, an even score on the mantelpiece.
Suffer the children and let them hear,
how dear old father spent his early years.
Not quite the gambler, but held two steady hands,
one for the whiskey, one for his wife and kids.
I let the devil in my heart,
I left the doors unlocked.
And we lived happily every so often