Escape Artist

My alter-ego

He’s an escape artist

He’s only truly happy when he’s under arrest

Oh how he handsome, scheduled to hang to death

He’s only truly happy at the precipice

He’s like a mirror

He sticks into our ears

A stethoscope to the chest of the vacant years

I can’t escape the chair, I’m etherized with fear

That my only talent is in hanging here

But then it’s

Hey boy, I’ve got your man he’s right here

Putty in my hands

Ice cream and sweets

Coming in the sheets

He got no excuse to leave

And in the real world, an intertidal cave

I ride a desk chair waiting for a tidal wave

I feel like dancing, but that is miles away

I’m feeling hard and hollow like paper mache

My alter ego. He’s in a jailer’s cage

He sits and waits for the devil to abet his escape

I’m sorry pastor, I can’t be pasteurized

All of the bibles in the world for a metal file

At every clock strike, he hears the jailer’s keys

And the doubt starts to sprout til he’s on his knees

But he is singing, when the night is black

“All I am is whatever I’m aiming at”

And he remembers like it’s his mother’s call

To feel his hand find a grip at the top of the wall

And I want to feel it, I want to feel the fire

Of the leftover sun on the roofing tiles