The Lost Canaries - Opening Poem

You watch the actors relive your scenes in the edited footage, making the mistakes you would never make yourself. Because, of course, if you were plopped back into the film reel, you would

Avoid every pitfall,

Meet every challenge,

Execute every achievement.

As you sit in the theater and look up at the screen, all your reality—everything you have ever

Seen,

Touched,

Heard,

Tasted,

Smelled,

Or thought—

Has been reduced to fragments only available through this supercut reel. But the film clips flick past fast as lightning, separated by miles of unforgiving blackness; these remaining clips will always just be the stray bits,

Forever inaccessible through the screen,

Never fully yours again.

You find yourself starting to boo at the film, tossing popcorn toward the screen to change the plot. You hate the irrecoverable dark patches between the scenes.

But then you realize, even with all the deleted footage, this is the only way you could have seen the film and still exited the theater afterward.

In an unedited format, all your reality back on the screen

Would have become singular and permanent, stifling any sequel you try to pump out before the lead actor dies.

In an unedited format, all your reality in the theater right now

Would grow just as distant as the film on screen, with a much shorter reel to re-watch when the sequel finally hits the box office.

Keep what life footage you can,

But let the end credits roll.

Because when you do, you will find yourself more comfortable in your seat than you ever knew possible.

As the other moviegoers start exiting the one-screen theater, all having seen different films,

You watch everything suddenly begin again.

After all, grief is just love refusing to say goodbye, even in death,

And you still have the performance of your life left to give....

-PL