Mannerisms

I’m not like them, alive, man, human, or at least I don’t look at myself as being treated like one human to another these days, especially not today I was only a child and maybe that was worst, children are people too but what am I. “Mannerisms”

How I wish to be the tin man,
as it’s a sin man to take everything
and I mean everything, please understand,
to heart. Understand me the slings
and arrows and so I ran
because I was not him I ran to cling

onto every part of this scarecrow form.
This form might as well be me, I insist
but you insist, in fact, you warn
me, I would warn you, if I could find my lips.
What good are those lips for, if they adorn
one who will only adorn a checklist

of what not to do in your car.
Here in my car, I feel safest of all
a dummy, after all, is not my choice by far
only it would be far enough, even if I fall
for anything, fall and crash, there you are
yet are you serious, as I lie here sprawled

out as though this is unknown.
Nothing is unknown in this digital age
Apart from my age, my rage, the hard stone
iron fist, losing my marbles, stone heart, not one page
there are dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of storybook bones
my past picking the bones of a player not yet on the stage

So why would I bother to applaud
Yet you all will applaud, daddy, mommy, man, and woman
Autumn leaves take some abroad
Still, I want to believe at home and abroad, someone knew him
Knew of him, knew him, knew me, because everyone thinks they’re God
Forgive me for not praising you God, I wasn’t much of a man for being Human

Copyright © 2017, Will A. Bradford Jr. All rights reserved.