Circus

Come one come all, before its too late
The circus is shutting down
Bid farewell to those who have made you laugh
(Since that wasn’t actually the goal.) You were meant to be amazed. But the balance
Was too damn hard to maintain. Same goes for the wild animals. Seems that control
Was merely an illusion. After all, this is a circus

Closing down is the only realistic thing to do. After all, keeping three crazy rings of a circus
Going is hard work. All those balls in the air all the time? So, sometimes dinner was late
Grab some popcorn, circus clowns, balanced dinners don’t necessarily mean control
If no one’s on fire and the tents are staked down
Why should I worry about losing my balance
Up on the tightrope, juggling knives, fire, self-worth. Isn’t it enough to have tried?

Go on, you try it. Bring home some bacon, fry it up. You’ve never tried
Using an advanced degree to bring order to this place, to manage this circus
The key, they’ll tell you, is finding balance
Which takes nerve wracking soul-searching and 36-hour days. Never-mind. It’s too late
I’m done. Just let me pack up the peanuts and crackerjacks. Take the striped tent down
And I’ll be off. What’s that? You think I’ve lost it? Finally lost control?

That may be but I’ll let you in on a secret: It was all just an illusion. A magical illusion of control
You want me to stay? Fine, but the illusion act has to go. I have tried
Too hard and the effort has worn me down
Let’s try instead for a free-range circus
Our monkeys will jump on their beds and stay up way too late
And if we have pancakes for dinner sometimes so what? We can always balance

It out with a nice big salad for breakfast. Can’t balance
Be about something more than delivering what’s expected. Can’t it be about losing control
And surprise! finding yourself? I don’t know, maybe its not too late
For me, I only tried
To do it the way they expected. Keeping it all together. A clean, well lit, orderly circus
But it wore me way down

I don’t know, maybe I should wait before I untie the last stake and pull down
The big tent. It certainly seems impossible, but maybe just one last shot at balance
What if the answer is that the circus
Works best without a set schedule. With no predetermined ideologies. No tight control
If I’m going to be honest that’s the one thing I never tried:
Relaxing my grip. Who knows? Maybe I can learn to go with the flow, if I’m not too late

Perhaps our circus could prosper with the tightrope torn down
With the popcorn popped late and no attempt even at balance.
For the illusion of control is just that, a mirage, best relinquished once tried.