Hey kid!

Popcorn and peanuts! Freak and flying,

lions let loose, creatures of all kinds;

Don’t Tell Anyone!

A miraculous show, a spectacular event!

Go on holiday, experience wonder,

treat yourself to the inner horror

brewing within you,

yearning to be free!

Here, here, foist your money off;

hard-worked hours traded in for some coins,

let the isolation and unending toil

pay for your dirty anger,

your hatred,

your expensive destruction!

Only Don’t Tell Anyone!

You might find

that beneath your screams of jubilation,

you are just as hollow as you ever were.

You might find,

that as you creep beneath

the unfurling flags and the beribboned arc,

as you slink into the tent heady

with butter and onion-sweat,

you might find

some hideous creature,

sleek with shimmer

and beautiful with strength

and caged.

Some pathetic thing,

with iron upon its wrists,

its ruler waving the hot brand

as it flinches and onlookers roar with delight.

You might find it, tripping forward

uneasy under expectant eyes,

tentatively unfolding

perfect,

leather

wings;

the wings are useless, note!

It cannot fly away any more than the unicyclist

or the monkey or the juggler alongside!

It lifts its throat and blows a single stream

of flame—the crowd loves it!

And, knowing the barb of its ruler’s brand,

it scuttles on weak, stumped legs,

fire breathing to life in the air.

But Don’t Tell Anyone!

Or you might hear,

beneath the unrelievable roar of hunger,

beneath the shouts of the ringmaster,

beneath the puttering breath of the

dragon,

a tiny, singular note

ringing in grief,

wanting for nothing more than its mother,

trapped, alone.