Fake Blood

Innate like a polyester rug,
cold red ruptures from the character’s
spleen and swaths across an impotent
knife. The man behind the stage wall
struggles to find breath,
his life ebbs onto a sterile floor, sanitised
like a hospital in preparation
for the next fatality.

A synthetic pool calmly rests on faux-wood.
Eyes, exhausted to their final breath,
sink behind weary lids. Limbs sag
under the pressure of weighted necessity,
all folded in and comfortably twisted.

An acrylic mouth sighs from
cracked-bottle lips,
and stained string loosely
drapes over his tidal chest;
two props swell and calmly subside
against a well rehearsed fiction
while a thousand glassy eyes shimmer in mourning.