A Response to a Play I Disliked
©August 22nd, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
If fiction within fiction within fiction
Stretches its arms towards Truth,
And finds that *that* is a fiction,
What’s left?
Chains, maybe?
Paper chains, waiting to be ripped.
A trudge through weary tropes,
Paper flames and cartoon parents,
An emotion too tired to be sadness,
A history too tenuous to grasp.
And I struggle to reach empathy
Even I struggle against it,
As an outside force pushes me
Violently and laughingly towards it.
I stand still, and dig my heels in,
Examine the landscape,
Swallow my ire,
And turn around.
Open the gates of ivory,
I wish to pass back out through them,
For I seek the gates of horn.
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