My father continues to propose a game
He can only show up when there are rules
Engagement without artifice is too dull

He says:
I am the projector, telling stories in the dark
You are the screen, blank
Waiting for my light
An exciting role for both of us
Imagine all the possibilities
We’ll see Africa and France
Inhabit the lives of the wide world
Oh, the wisdom we’ll impart

But father, I want to be a living thing
This ferocity of spirit
Which you believe involves savage destruction
And I feel as an unrelenting intensity
(An argument over nuanced meaning)
Is really a disease
Brought about by this dynamic,
This Mephistophelian play

I know how you need to define me
It keeps me fixed upon the wall
We must move beyond the insight
That I am more than these moving pictures
Projected upon the screen

I am not this flat thing, nor these illusions,
Nor this disease of ferocity
I’m a breathing animal, with an indwelling divine nature
That may roam this earth
Creating my own tales
Of strange and marvelous encounters