End scene

[neurotika]

He pulls back,
he gets up,
and he's whole again.
There's a transient shift,
a millisecond's pause,
and it's long over,
and he's done.

You blink, dazed,
hoping for involuntary processes,
for automatic readjustment of sight.
But your mind's eye remains dilated,
your view limited, darkened,
your perspective narrowed,
unable to tear itself away from the movie-screen moment,
from the wrapped scene.

And it always is a role you play,
no matter what the stage.
They direct, and edit, and cut, and stop, and start,
and you -
you're recast.
Relegated.
Reused.

Compartmentalized.

You give yourself over gladly,
willing.
You pour yourself in, pour over lines.
And they pan away.
They pull back,
get up.
They leave it behind,
at the end of the day's work.

Wide-eyed,
bleary-eyed,
you peer up at them in incomprehension,
marvelling over
their eyes, closing -
letting go.