subtext

It’s a matter of control: the reader

The writer, and the text. All must submit

To the desires of the other’s meaning,

And the bonds of our understandings.

Such are the clichés of the written word.

One simply has to provide a few hooks

To tie the readers to a narrative,

And then drive them along beneath its whip.

In this poem, you are a trope to be used—

I lay you on the page aware I’m wrong

To take you in such a way, yet I do

Knowing only here do I have control.

We give ourselves up to the word’s power,

And willingly lock the chains at our feet.