I never rehearsed for the play that is my life,
but I became the joker for a person that’s not my wife.
She said it was a test
to see if she believed
that she could see herself with someone like me.
But the curtain rose too slow,
and the only joke in the story… was me.
Broken hearts may mend,
but the ‘I love yous’ always find an end.
Like a mirror that shows two clowns
painted smiles where truth should’ve been found.
We played devotion in greasepaint and grin,
laugh lines drawn where bruises begin.
She studied my heart like extra credit,
graded it on curves she never meant to edit
I rehearsed worth in the mirror,
but the spotlight skipped my cue.
Forever, just an acronym
for when I change my mind.
I ad-libbed love in a tragedy she authored,
played fool to a role she never offered.
just silence rehearsed on repeat
applause for devotion that died inside me
She walked past my monologue with ease, while I broke character just to believe.
A life wasted where love was tested,
fulfillment denied at all of the stages.
Broken promises that never meant a thing,
only years wasted of a life that’s not my own.
Yet still, I hold the lantern under my chin
hoping someone sees my shadow and calls it home.
This hurt, too wide for letters to hold,
spills past ink into shadowed soul.
I shared my story, not for applause
just to prove it wasn’t a ghost I spoke to for so long
If hope is a gauntlet,
I’ll wear it till it cuts,
bleed the verses that kept me
one breath from vanishing.
And though no one warned
how hollow these halls would echo,
I light this final line like a lantern:
Still here. Still mine. Still going.
But is this where it ends,
or where breath returns to bone?
The beginning folded in the silence that named me unknown.
I stand before the curtain,
not asking for applause
just a glimpse of grace
in the eyes that dared to pause.
Will I see love in every face that’s lost?
Or pain, like a shadow stitched to cost?
Maybe both, maybe neither,
but I’ll step forward just the same.
Not for closure,
but for proof
that I was never just the joke
in someone else’s flame.
The Wandering-Mind 