the carnival

In the night, stars dance across the ceiling as a neon parade swarms the circle. 
Vibrant diversity rings in each color, in each promenade. 
A mass of euphoria, of ecstasy, takes over each swing, each dance, each act as they contort themselves, risk themselves, outcast themselves all for the sake of twinkling under the stars. 

Me? I'm the ringleader.
I stand high on the tightropes with my hula hoop and flags, signaling for each animal to pass through in their stampede of dissonance. 
While everyone else in the audience is a smear of gray, of mob mentality awe, I stand out like a checkered array of black and white. 
Ballerinas plie across the wires and ropes; 
Contortionists stretch their limbs in mistrewn directions;
Daredevils eat fire and exhale it as if it were nothing but air —
for all the crowd knows, it is. 

A parade of misfits, of diversity warps the audience's minds with awe and reaction. 
Dazzled in the starry praise for such a moonlight occasion, I, the ringleader twist into a bow:

This life is no carnival,
although things do appear larger than life sometimes;
it's quite the opposite in fact: 
Life is a masquerade. 

Advertisement