“Everybody look through and see
If something is not as it’s meant to be.”
I flip, and look, and flip, and look, and flip
And I come across adversity.
A silence falls, cold and crisp.
I know I’ve erred, and curse my lips.

I am made to stand in view
Yet while I am red, she is blue.
“Come with me.” Barely a whisper!
And in that hiss, the world is renewed
With a blinding light that could burn a sinner.
Look at the grins of default winners.

Walking down, too nervous to say,
Too anxious see, too discomforted to sway
Or twitch a muscle, or even open a valve
To march blood on its way.
For audacity, for courage, I search; I scrounge
But no sign of protest will my mouth.

In this brief time, elongated by fear,
The roar of a clank! is all that I hear.
Not the laughter not the crying, other miscellaneous sound.
This hissing noise clanks while I, at the rear,
Follow stripped and shamed, not proud.
O! Why did I announce discrepancy aloud?

And yet, in my fear, I’m greeted with wonder
By those who know not of my insidious blunder.
I’m greeted and questioned – no time to respond!
As quick as lightning, yet as slow as thunder,
I’m hauled away still down, captured, pawned
As the queen takes glee in my chance to be wrong.

Brief (o how brief) yet I’m still left to ask
Who is hiding behind the assimilated mask?
There’s doubt (no proof) that I could possibly be
The only Cesario to have failed at my task
Which was truly performed so exceedingly
While the lucky unlucky did stare at me

And mock in their minds, “Disgraceful. How foolish.
He was the black sheep and so he deserves this.
Let the worst happen while I keep my head down.
I had no hand in his fortune – the cruelest
That any could imagine. Completely unsound!
But we didn’t do it, it was he that was loud…”

Maybe I am at fault; maybe I am.
Maybe I should have been like the lamb
And let myself be led by Boldwood
When I ought to have been in Gabriel’s hand.
Here’s a note to all of the dreadful “I should”s:
Where were you when I spoke and stood?

How could you let me reject defeat,
Cast me out into the streets,
A joke for all the world?
You knew that none would commiserate.
You knew the frowns would curl
At the chance to straighten a twirl.

You knew the negatives, and still
I’m being led by window sills
Revealing light that could have been mine.
Life can’t be just a run of the mill –
Yet… My folly isn’t a crime.
It was bound to happen, if given time.

Was I destine; triggered for –
“In there! Sit down! Feet on the floor!
When he gets here you’ll really learn.”
Ought mistakes to be made out as a chore,
Do they make us human, battered and burned,
More vindictive than a Grecian urn?

He enters, and sits, and stares at me.
I try to stare back, though just faintly.
While I don’t believe it, I’ve been told I’m in the wrong
And by his expectant eyes he wants me to plea.
I cannot do it and be part of the throng.
I stand and inhale deep and long

And announce that I am not at fault;
That if he wants a shine he can find it in a vault
Guarded and locked away in seclusion;
But outside he’ll find a dirty cult
That will stand against his spotless allusion.
Of in or out, though, he will choose in.

He gives me what I need in silent cynicism
As though my self-defense was a kind of criticism
Aimed at him for no reason but jest.
I see in his eyes that he was believed to be the victim.
I make a long trip short in returning, and yes,
I knew, without completion, I had passed that test.