Masquerade

Here it is, another Friday, another rambling 150ish word shot at the winner badge (or at least a special mention).

I don't carry around a case of clown phobia, so this prompt wasn't as terrifying for me as it may have been for others (if there had been four hairy-legged giant spiders eyeing the boy from the side of the bed, that would have been a different story. Shudder).

I've seen a lot of things floating around on internet and Facebook recently about death. Cancer. Diseases. A "poison pill." 

The thing is, when that time-stamp inks your life, your perspective changes. This little merry-go-round on which we revolve, the social mannerisms, the political correctness, the words we should say, the ones we shouldn't, the cues and mores and ins and outs of culture--that all gets swept aside when the shade of Reckoning slips across our daily agenda.

Deep thoughts early on a Friday. Here's my attempt to put some of these thoughts into words.
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Perspective
Somewhere in this multi-ring circus of drawn-out death–
life with a closing sign, my doctor says–
the actors file into my arena.
They line up before me, balancing on their tightropes,
laughing and jesting for the audience of one,
clowns in full costume,
red grins pasted on hidden faces,
masquerading behind their smiles to tame the pain.

It’s a dance, a perfect symmetry,
where the ringmaster directs,
and the elephants trumpet on cue,
the aerialist releases the bar in sizzling tempo,
the lions wave their harmless claws at the tamer.

Funny how I get to sit in the waiting room,
counting the hours until clock-out time,
my part in the circus terminated with no severance pay.
Now I sit the sidelines, spectating.

Funny how they must toe the tightrope
with surgical precision
until someone falls off,
and they turn on him like birds of prey.

I never noticed it before.