My final encore

So you look at me with your bleary, teary eyes
Always a show with you, always a pantomime
You never can know
Because my stage is empty
No more scars or tears
Not in front of your audience

But if you really looked, you'd find me there
Hiding away, at the back of the room
the darkened auditorium
Crying in secret
I can't scream anymore
My tears are frozen, my cries turned to ash
But you're perfectly happy, drenched in your own hot tears

I see you weeping in public, wailing screaming
Try loving someone all summer long
Until the trees die
then the rivers freeze
And never telling a soul, never utter a word
Just imagine, try to fathom my pain
No one else seems to

because I don't weep my tears of salt and blood
Under the spot light, in the lime light
I don't act it out for the world to see
That perfect monologue with costumes and masks

I sit here in silence and solitude
And don't let myself cry
i pale away and waste away, fade and shrivel
Quietly on my own, back stage, out of sight
And once in a while someone will notice
A denser concentration of shadows or a silent tear
Yet still your pantomime, your screaming opera sings on
Still drenched in tears, and blood, and angst

And I watch from the audience
Weeping for my lost theater days

Well Im crying out now, slipping on my final costume
Screaming out your name
in the final encore