We Are All Actors – a poem.

Dictionary

Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more

actor

/ˈaktə/

noun

• 1.
• a person whose profession is acting on the stage, in films, or on television.
  “fans now recognize James more as an actor than as a singer”
• Similar:
• performer
• player
• trouper
• theatrical
• dramatic artist
• thespian
• member of the cast
• artist
• artiste
• actress
• luvvie
• histrionic
• stager
• 2.
• a participant in an action or process.
  “employers are key actors within industrial relations”

We are all actors

In this theatre

They wrap me up

Around, and within the matrix

I cannot seem to unwind

Stuck, watching the time,

Ticking 

As this play plays out in front of you.

Invisible, yet you think

 you can see me.

I appreciate the little things,

The way the curtains fall

As I take my bow

Before my audience.

The small details.

But nothing at all is ever worth noticing.

What are the details that matter?

The little things that make you feel larger;

Even when you’re still so small.

People may see me,

But do they really know when I am there?

I am not the one with the eyes which are bulging

Out of one’s skull

The eyes you think you see

The eyes you think you admire.

The eyes which are supposed to

Convey

Emotion,

And humanity.

Those eyes are nothing to me;

They were given to me, forcibly –

 ‘the props’ for the face.

My eyes live within my soul.

The tick-tock of the clock

Echoes, ringing, even

In my ear.

I am trying to abide by it.

I try to abide by

These daily alarms

This clock –

It cannot wake me up.

Not even the lights that strike my body in the centre of this universe;

I am the limelight; I am the centre, yet I can’t truly feel it.

My routine is scattered in empty pages on the floor.

My responsibility, my role

Has been discarded.

Forget these words;

They have not been declared.

Lines that have been abandoned.

Unwritten; unrehearsed.

There is a silence so loud;

As I exist on this stage,

Full of chaos, full of nothing but noise.

Deep within

Is this knowing

That all I am left with is:

The infinity of the greater universe,

The complex simplicity 

Of this concept called time.

I find my character pulled 

between multiple realms

Then, there is this space;

I am stuck in the matrix –

Not able to distinguish between the character and myself.

The role, and my identity.

Helplessly watching the time pass me by;

Knowing that nothing on this stage really exists.

The theatre is a lie.

Aren’t we all temporary performers?

Hired for the moment –

Stolen from our greater purpose,

Waiting to recite the real scripts.