He’s a half-man.
He’s half the man he was promised to be.
He’s a walking-lie-ever-changing-anthropomorphic half-man, yet nothing wrong ever comes out, not a word or a syllable judged evil.
He’s a saint-man, the half-man. No shadow that he can’t cast, though he always remains the half-man, no matter the form taken.
He’s a lioness, he’s a waitress, sometimes he’s the maester, sometimes the faithful pupil, and few times he’s also just himself:
half full or half empty cup of a man.
He dives deep into the sidewalk whenever a social fear he can’t cope tempts him to flee.
He’s a half-man,
a man charges,
he’s only paid not to look,
not to say a word, to abide by
the wage.
He kills, the half-man, a blind man, not knowing what or who, yet he listens every time for the snapping sound of a life torn out of pages.
He’s always gun-naked, not a pistol nor a knife, armed with his social fears only, his bear-hairy shapeshifting hands awaiting orders.
He’s a fool, the half-man, the saint-man, the gun-naked man.
He’s a paid man, paid not to look, not to think a word of his own, paid to abide, to
snap.
He’s a listening man, songs of cries and silences sang at the corners behind the dumpsters where he snuggly hides and learns.
He’s unwise, the half-man, blind by the wage for the wage, abiding by the wage for the wage and to calm his own social fears.
He’s a concept man, an idea not fully realised, an empty promise of a man too deep to be handheld.
He’s a wordless man, unable to form new sentences, a worthless man, stealing words for survival.
He’s a writer, the half-man, fuelled by doubt and social entrust, capable only of
“paraphrasing the unbroken steps that dare walk by him everyday on the sidewalk.”
He’s a wage man, the half-man, paid not to look, to write about
death and
sorrow and
cliché noir guilt.
He’s but a blind fool, not listening, not truly, not daring, not really, unwise, not chasing for the one thought of his own.
He’s a drowning man,
the writer,
the half-man,
blank pages soaking wet in a storm of questions not his own to answer,
and when the rains and thunderous fears and all the killing
stop,
will he know how to swim back up to the sidewalk?
Ricardo M. Vieira 