the curse
This is our curse.
We bleed.
Every sob from your lips is a wail from ours, of heartrending sorrow or blackest despair.
Every cut is an evisceration, gouging deep into our innards.
Every pinprick a mortal wound,
Each scratch a scrape across our bones that leaves fragments in our marrow.
We are conduits of human emotion;
We exist to channel those things you cannot say,
Shape the things you cannot yet recognise,
And through our fiery souls reduce them down to a milder form,
Fit for general consumption.
We are the ones who lay on muddied ground,
With the things you dare not think soaking into our coats,
So that you may step over us without soiling your shoes.
You may stand in the gallery with head cocked,
Assessing the sound, the meter, the patterns left on canvas by our tattered hearts
As they were kicked across the floor.
And you may smile, faintly understanding,
Or shake your head and say
“That is not it at all.”
We bleed, over and again,
And we wear out our shoes from kicking,
And our eyes from crying,
And our coats from soaking in the feelings of others.
We bleed out.
But we bleed better writing, better art, better music.
This is our curse.
This is how we serve.
© mjc 07 October 2017
