A Real Life Poem by Louis Payne

I marvel at how attentive you are,
With your little ballerina feet kicking
As the movie flicks and the real rolls.
Your mouth catching flies; coke stained,
Discarded popcorn prompts a world to life.

In here we are safe.
And yet my love, my Principessa,
How I long to tell you otherwise of out there,
Beyond the screen, exists no cuddly bear to great you,
No princess to set free; nor happy ever after.

To break this now, well, would be a death for both of us
When there is so much happiness before,
Yes, in watching your eyes hop and skip
To every scene and sound moves a response in you.
How this touches me and holds me back.

Like death, the end comes in here too.
There is no interval to hold it off.
The big screen gives out and lights, in due time,
Descend on us like vultures.
Picking and pecking our backs until we leave.

At least for now, we have an hour or so
Before the film, like life, rolls out
It's blank black curtain,
Before the long thin man at the end of the isle,
Blinds us with his spot light of exits and great escapes.

Just then, I imagine, I will have to drag you out of here
Screaming, like every father does at some point -
Wishing that the world would take over
And welcome you on stage with rapturous applause;
Throws flowers occasionally.

Instead, the world is dark
And old with love gone off.
There is no one telling us different.
Except for a distant cry
Of a world we lost, beckons us back.