Somewhere in the Pantomime
My attachment to my words has become deadly.
He thought to himself. The words that once spilled forth, have corrupted the world around him. For once in his life, he wishes he had none. And now...and now that they have been said, he can never take them back. They hang in the air around them. A heavy reminder of what lays deep in his heart. She wasn't supposed to see them. Not the depth of his soul. Not the truth. Because the truth is just as deadly when the words spill out in a myriad of unhindered temptation. And once a piece had been broken off and savored.
He needed more.
The taste was bitter and addicting. Toxic to his system but once he had it, he needed to quench it wholeheartedly. And what did she do? She fed him more of it with her own deadly words. Words that she held in so long, that the wall could no longer withstand the force and utter need she had to get them out.
There are roles that we all must play. We may not understand them, we might not even get the script until the finale act, but we are cast, and the show must go on.
But where do we go when the last lines are spoken, and the curtain falls? Do we let the darkness behind the stage overpower us, take advantage of the adrenaline coursing through our veins, knock the wind that has already been panting from our charged bodies, and give in?
It's nothing but a pantomime.
But it wasn't was it? It wasn't exaggerated, and it wasn't just some show. A play on words or something they had rehearsed. It was raw and spontaneous. Forthcoming, maybe, in a sense. They both understood what was coming. But when they were forced to enter stage right, or was it left? They met somewhere in the middle and entered into the roles of two people on opposite sides of their hearts.
And when it was over, they were equally broken. Knowledgeable, but in the heat of the act, they lost the meaning. They forgot what it was they were trying to portray. The electricity, the anger that sprang forth from their individual scripts blinded them from the bigger picture. The metaphor written between the lines of their given roles.
And now. As they stand before each other, the crowd swept into stunned silence... the protagonist and antagonist, still both unsure which is which, stand off and wonder who had the better show. Whose deceit fooled the audience. Who struck the better claim. Who's side are they on?
Does it matter?
Because in the end they are still standing on either side of the stage. One will exit stage right, the other left. And both will be unsure of how the story really ends.
Wrote this randomly a bit ago, thought I would repost it here to give it another chance. thoughts?