Stage Fright

The silhouette doth round me dance,

Fickle as foreign gold.

No light I find in pretense I oppose,

All beings of the Otherworld I fear.

Two shadows waltz in ghostly scenes,

Each breath a Fairy Moon shall read

The dialogue of darkest nights.

In torment, gravest Thespian shall take his stage,

Such horrid lines he fears that he must read.

The words upon the gates of Hell

Are stuck in murky prose about his lips.

There is no light. Silence is around him,

But Gothic chords, so coarsely plucked,

Hath wrought him wholly at this will. 

All vanity is gone when words so bare are said,

And breath by breath he slows the heart

Till time is stopped. We watch his spirit

Take a step. Oh so slowly, ever languish,

Watching on to see the spirits take their place.

Such symmetry the world will never know in truth.

There be no Oedipus, no Orpheus,

No Fallen Prince of Montague,

Who tells the world their story like our own.

The ghost therein shall act,

And speak his lines, and hear the cheering.

But he can never catch those roses,

And so he lets them fall upon his grave.