Apologies are paper bags filled with water, meaning something for a moment, then nothing but soggy mush crushed into sand, irretrievable by empty hands that once held them.

Heavy hands scrabbling at the land where memories are buried like broken shells. Beaches are fallen sandcastles. Driftwood is wrecked boats. Only the sea is free, flowing easily in and out, washing away shorelines like doubt from weary brows.

I am weary now. Weary of iron masks that shroud intent in rusting smiles. Weary of wishing to win. Bored of games I didn’t see begin. Tired of heavy loads.

We are beasts of burden, mutant mules meant for more. Meant to sail to distant shores, not covered in sores like some sorry hemmed up herd of Jobs.

“Curse God and die”, said the sad man’s wife. All my life this sounded like some scornful slur, a blasphemy of puppetry from Satan’s hand inside her head. Perhaps instead she meant it kindly, euthenasia not execution. ‘Please, my darling, spare yourself further pain, take his name in vain’.

Again the Bible editor’s fallen woman typecast.

Type fast ye fertile fingers, ye poets of the world, for now more than ever we need insight to unfurl. Wicked her, wicked he, wicked you, wicked me, wicked they, wicked we, how much sicker could it be?

My stomach churns, a paper bag of pointless apologies melting into sand at my knees as the audience cries encore.

No flowers, no bow, no curtain, no more.