Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Wax-Man Rhetoric


When the wax-man came
He showed us how brightly we had all burned
A clean, rigid slip of paper passed with machine precision to each hand that he said deserved it
Written upon them was our appointed value to the world
After 8 years when our fire was still elementary, and 4 years in which we burned on high
These values were the fruits of our education.

Some flames were almost extinguished on the spot
Some leapt in height and scorched the ceilings
Many remained just the way they were.
And mine, as always, was blue and flickering.

Sixty six. My number.
My so-called value.

Flip that Sixty Six average and you found my percentile in the ninety-ninth.
I’ve never been a stupid person. I just see with a different clarity.

See…I never burned yellow.
I blazed blue the way I did, and when their golden-flamed curriculum overlapped with my sapphire sparks, we found some happy medium, and it earned me that sixty six in dull ink, dot matrix perforations cutting as sharp as the cookie-cutter comments written below

“Daniel is an extraordinarily bright young candle, but his continuing unwillingness to apply himself is what has resulted in his poor grade”

My continuing unwillingness to change the colour of my flame, like tiger stripes into leopard spots

I knew the presence of his phantom hands early on, felt his frustration in failing to shape forms he found to be functional. Each frenzied flicker I fired, caressing so many elements around me, never focusing on a still flame meant my own wax never softened…he could not sculpt me – simply snap me in pieces, which only served to make me burn brighter for every bit of wicked spine and spindled wick he exposed.

I was not made to fit into holders; to adorn walls as a decorative piece of a matched set.
I was made to burn blue, and flickering – to seek out those other un-golden flames and add my hue and temperament to everyone around me. Let me drip my body’s blood across writing desks that I might be an inspiration.

I flicker and it frightened him that my fire might spread – adding blue to each yellow and making him see green.

He could try to douse me in oceans of Wax-man rhetoric, but he would never realize that the ocean has more in common with my colour than his, so god damn it, bring it on

Sixty six suited me just fine – it was a grade in a reality not in sync with my own.

All he had given me was sixty six reasons to follow my heart down darkened tunnels and emerge in a place that flickers like landscaped wildfire that burns cross-spectrum and thrives in the resulting heat it produces

All he gave me was the confirmation that I was burning beyond his understanding, so bright as to identify with my future.

All he gave me was a double digit acknowledgment that I was better than anything he had to offer.