The lights were already on, when I first came to be onstage,
Nobody had asked me, but I’m sure staying there was courage,
No idea what the others were going to say or do, was I even an actor?
Or with full control over my reaction, was I the director or writer?
I figured they must have a party going once they went offstage,
But never did find out, stuck here as an unwitting hostage,
Surprising me, with times too big to count the crowd, and yet leaving me all alone,
Maybe testing me to see, for what I would atone, and what I would condone.
Under all these lights, you would think the purpose was to surely upstage,
That performing louder and better, was surely the way to build personage,
Only to realise that all these parts would never add up to the whole,
Because everyone onstage believed their role was more than just a role.
It seemed to everybody, that their role, their place was centrestage,
And all of their overwhelming experience was just the smell of age,
Everyone had a surprising role, no matter if they were just a child,
Until their role ended, they had to let their imagination run wild.
I knew you had already done your role, and retired backstage,
And yet I stubbornly refused to say my lines, and turn the page,
Hopeful that you still had a line pending, that I wasn’t aware,
That you were just busy performing a role on a stage elsewhere.
Alas, I knew not, that all your roles were always on your own stage,
All my reactions, were to your attempts to define your own image,
I heard the lights being turned off, with neither notice nor disdain,
And I would never see what you were enacting, behind the curtain.
This one is for the Mirror, being a reflection of everyday life, as well as metaphor of so many existential interactions and the assumptions that make everyday life seem like it is.
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