Seasons

(Monologue for Voodoo Pixie’s burlesque number ‘Seasons’ – AbraCadaver Cabaret)

You hear of man’s biggest fear
being that of heights: the peering over an edge
to a bottomless mouth
or of speaking in public: the unnumbered dark
stitched in place with the thoughts and fangs of strangers

but these are myth

man’s biggest fear lies further, earlier
you know this fear yourself, this muted, touchless other

you know the feeling of something soft
collapsing in your chest
as you watch the sun fall earlier, earlier each evening

how as the days get short, the colder wind begins
to nip at your knuckles like a teething puppy
that will not listen

how the older you get, the more summer begins to resemble
a fickle lover, the kind you cannot quit
who swears to you this time, this time they will stay
if you give them your heart as well as your skin,
and year after year
you wake at the Equinox with the smell of snow
filling your bedroom
and only the weightless quiet for company

you think you know yourself, that change is a thing you escape
that this calendar shift between temperatures
this swirl of colour at your knees is merely
weather
and has nothing to do with
your ancient body

and yet

it chases you into the woods each winter
showing once more you are ever becoming a new
dark thing.