The Man Who Turned Himself into a Chair

 

“A chair is still a chair even when

there’s no one sitting there.”

                                  ~Hal David

 

It must be a tyranny to be so rigid.

I want no part in this travesty.

You, who were so bored with life

fled into paralysis rather than analysis.

I think of you as asleep, as it

helps me reach you with compassion.

 

Had you known doing and saying

the same things over and over

would result in this staid metamorphosis,

would you have persisted

with such analgesic repetition?

 

I have questions.

Was it not enough to be able

to leave a room at will?

When your need to feel safe

imprisoned you in unsayable stasis;

artistic equal to the plastic flower

sans scent or power to arouse,

a bulb that offers no light, then,

where art thou source of electricity?

 

Is this any way to escape responsibility

surrendering your privilege to respond.

Can anyone really be happy

with a soul swaddled as a mummy

in fetid fabric for the rest of time?

You who once loved classical music,

what can you hear through your gauze?

 

Where do you hide your likes and dislikes

now that opinions are impossible to express?

Was life so intimidating that the blood

in your veins froze into down feathers,

wings that once enabled flight

now only filling without agency.

Do you not miss the give and take

of ordinary conversation?

 

Had you become so dispassionate

that turning into a chair took the form of a relief.

Maybe it is of some benefit not to care

who sits upon you. Still,

how does one run out of things worth saying?

What aesthetic so enticing that you

became content to be part of the decor?

Did you think becoming a chair

might cause others to value you more?

 

A chair is no way to make yourself useful.

If we’re not encouraged to be ourselves

what good is it to retreat into the mise en scene?

Who aspires to be a piece of furniture, anyway?

What uniformity in being human

isn’t self-imposed?

To be alive, awake, is to be

justifiably unpredictable.

 

The truth is, I did not see it

 happening slowly over time,

as wood fossilizes

unnoticed into stone.

Your skin changed its texture

from smooth to parched burlap.

Your back became hunched.

You sprouted wooden arms.

Your bottom sagged.

And now 

by putting yourself out to pasture,

a thing entirely unto itself,

a chair in a field of flowers,

you've become both

a black sheep and lost lamb.

 

 

10/11/22