Poetry Attempt #498

Dealing with Feelings, PART 2
by Rachel Witkovsky

The hatred was sublime and palpable.

Almost as if one could feel it from their third row, center seat.

The tears poured forth in waves of sorrow.

“The audience was afraid it would be flooded with feelings,” she laughs.

It was a show that made them feel what the actors felt

Because the actors felt what the playwright felt.

All due to the feelings of the characters rubbing off on the playwright.

“Everyone was feeling the feelings of someone else,” she smirks.

The theatre does that.

Makes a person delve into the anatomy of someone else’s heart.

But who wants to examine their own?

“Deal with others’ emotions before yours,” she advises.

Life would be a lot harder to deal with.

If everyone felt what was being conveyed on stage in their own life.

No one can have such raw emotions in their hearts, express it,

And go on living a 9 to 5 life.

Hope blossoms as a tree in spring.

Fear clutches as icy fingers of death.

Dreams come true like a story in a fairytale.

Death reaches out like an all consuming blackness of grief.

Playwrights write.

Actors act.

Audiences listen.

Fictional characters feel.

“Let them deal with it,” she demands,

“Let me watch it happen.

I don’t want those feelings myself.

I would have to live my life if that happened.”