thelittlebystander
This piece is a chaotic sermon dressed in satire, stitched with absurdity, and delivered by a narrator who can't quite decide whether they're joking-or warning you. Figures of Speech was born from watching the distortion of language in real-time-how words meant to unite often divide, how truth bends until it breaks, and how the loudest voices often say the least.
The poem is a venting valve. A fever dream with punchlines. It tackles everything from political hypocrisy and media theatrics to the decay of discourse itself. The "slips" in the poem-those ironic stumbles and word-swaps-aren't mistakes; they're masks peeling off. The more the narrator fumbles, the more they reveal.
At its heart, this poem is about power: who holds it, who manipulates it, and who suffers beneath it. But it's also about complicity-ours. We laugh, we scroll, we nod, and then we play our roles again. The circus restarts. The machine keeps running.
This is not a call to action. It's not even a protest. It's just a figure of speech.
Unless, of course, it isn't.