Unsigned confession

wel­come to your nervous ill­ness your nervous sys­tem your flut­ter­ing and your fluc­tu­at­ing cue clam­our­ing voices are the clam­our­ing voices ready yes ready we’re ready as of a dec­ade ago stood five deep and stacked sev­en­teen high off­stage left primed and pre­pared and per­fectly poised take to the spot­lights take to the flood­lights switch switch switch metal­lic clank and flash and on and on with the per­form­ance tell us tell us tell us what you want to do with your life inform us amuse us enter­tain us edu­cate us tell us what you want to do with your piti­ful exist­ence and your plen­ti­ful res­ist­ance show us your scars and your echoes did you hear can you see you’re remain­ing eer­ily quiet for one so ebul­li­ent has the cat got your tongue frog in your throat dog of a day gir­affe in your no no no I get the pic­ture I always see I don’t know I’m sur­pris­ingly insight­ful for one so short-sighted this I sup­pose this is what I want to do and be and say this just this be more com­mit­tal don’t hedge your bets don’t waive your rights don’t vacil­late and hes­it­ate or pre­var­ic­ate and pro­cras­tin­ate this then this then this and noth­ing more noth­ing else I’ll shout the win­dows into shat­ter and the wood into splinter if I have to it’s what I’ve always wanted deep down here in the pit of my stom­ach scrap­ing at my rib­cage and block­ing up my air­way and ham­mer­ing on my wheez­ing lungs not enough oxy­gen not not not enough oxy­gen breathe breathe breathe and relax and take it slow slowly slower we have all the time in the world or the next sixty seconds whichever comes sooner yes then this and noth­ing else and so much more because only here is where I truly exist and feel com­plete here is where I can spin out my days scratch­ing words into the bark and sen­tences into the ven­eered tab­letop and tear­ing the whole world into pieces of paper the size of snow­flakes and the shape of far-flung for­eign islands before set­ting them adrift set­ting them alight burn­ing them to cinders in the wire waste bas­ket any­thing else you have been most help­ful and inform­at­ive but this is your last chance to speak your final con­fes­sion your last will and test­a­ment any­thing else in your point­less defence before we reach our ver­dict yes I want to run away and inhabit deser­ted office build­ings where I slice off my hands with a guil­lot­ine so that I can pho­to­copy them in deser­ted rooms and leave pic­tures thou­sands of pic­tures thou­sands of guilty black and white fin­ger­prints on the rows and rows of desks is that all will that be all are you happy now that you’ve got your ounce and your pound and your kilo­gram of flesh yes we’re con­tent quite con­tent quiet and con­tent we’re quieter we’ll leave quietly we’ll be silent now we’ve got what we wanted an unsigned con­fes­sion it’s almost as good as your ulti­mate rat­tling breath though we know you won’t ever put your name to this we know you won’t put your­self on the dot­ted line we know you’ll never come clean and own up and turn queen’s evid­ence but all we required was this splurged out­pour­ing this ven­ted spleen this sod­den spur­ted mess upon the floor stay there stay there we don’t kick wretched beasts when they’re down and out and dis­eased and noth­ing more than a pile of bloody bones spittle mouthed and loose of limb so pick your­self up and dust your­self down and start all over again as the song goes the song go on sing it sing it sing sing sing