[ Put a man in a courtroom ]

Put a man in a courtroom
or a church;
scrub him of his sins and what's left?
Nothing interesting.
It's not compelling anymore.
It doesn't even have to be
the defendant or the penitent; in fact,
it's probably best that he's not.
Sympathy is the difference
between antihero and antagonist.
Complicity and disgust.

I made a thing but I didn't make you feel.
Is that my failure or yours?
I made a thing and left
all the feeling in the white space.
It's the only way to say the unspeakable.
Take away the lines between the lines
and what's left?
Nothing interesting.

A pen is just a pen
until you use it. Until you turn it
into a weapon. Vivisection or
blunt force trauma?
I want to be something useful,
a gun or a paintbrush,
to leave you something in an empty room
in the place that you might someday go.
To say: I know this place. I was here,
but I just couldn't wait anymore.
It's the difference
between context and conviction.

I made a thing and left it there
but I didn't make you
pick it up and use it.