peripeteia

I have watched enough of these

to know how they’re supposed to go —

the misunderstanding

that resolves itself in the third act,

the rain-soaked confession

no one walks away from unchanged,

the inability to find a taxi,

the camera finding just the right angle

on just the right face

at just the right moment…

and I believed I was writing something like that,

believed I could feel the narrative pulling toward its inevitable shape,

the way a sentence knows exactly where it’s going

before you finish it…

and out of nowhere the screen dims

and the little box appears asking

are you still watching

is anyone still watching this,

watching me?

and I sit here in the blue light

of my own unexamined life,

this question more serious than it was ever meant to be —

and I realize that this is the twist no one saw coming,

especially me:

I was never the protagonist.

I was the subplot they cut for time,

the character the writer liked but couldn’t make fit,

the scene that tested well but slowed the second act

and the main character of this story

walked right through me on their way

to something more interesting,

and I watched them go,

still holding the monologue I had prepared,

the one I thought was the whole point —

this was never going to be the fairy tale ending

I was rooting for.