Bottleneck

There is so much to say and no way to say it Fifteen people trying to get through one door And I'm sitting here, still. I'm the marble statue In the wind-swept garden, and I dunno how much more I can take it. The calm can only go so deep, y'know It gets me through the day, it helps me to do my job To live my life, to run my game. But the rage flickers Through and it shatters this last frail gasp of Quiet. I should come, as I did as a child, to my punishment All willing, having already peed, because I knew They wouldn't hit me hard if I was docile. Not like The Others, who ran and hid and screamed And were beaten. I am the good child, the snot-nosed brat, The responsible one, the failure. The mistake. I am patience and imperfection and I am too small To win. I am in turn beautiful and ugly, a comfort and Untouchable. Someday they'll put away their knives and let me live In peace instead of in pieces and I will not be afraid. Someday commercials won't cut like cardboard. Someday Grave dirt will cake my feet. Someday I will grin in Savagery and holiness. Someday, when I have righted the wrongs, solved the Problems, supported the world. Someday there will be No victims for me to redeem, like Mary, like the Pelican in her piety, feeding her young her own blood. Someday I'll die.