The Grant Application for a Deadly Theatre

You were born with a splinter of lightning,

a voice that hummed in the marrow

long before a form asked for filling.

 

Then came the form.

Boxes to tick: Tick!

Impact. Outreach. Carbon-neutral narrative. 

The funding pot waits, a golden bowl

filled with the currency of this month’s virtue.

 

You bend your brush to fit the outline.

You trim the wild notes from your throat.

You call it relevance.

You call it survival.

You call it art.

 

But listen… deeply listen…

in the quiet between rehearsals

a wind presses through the cracked window.

It is older than the Ministry of Culture,

older than every policy brief.

It is the Breath that once said Let there be,

and it asks only: Are you still mine?

 

Not the government.

Not the grant.

Mine.

 

The Divine does not fund outcomes.

It funds astonishment.

It wants the canvas splattered with your unmarketable heart,

the song you nearly drowned beneath the metrics.

 

And look… deeply look…

the stalls, boxes and galleries are full of polished consciences,

faces lit by the glow of being seen.

They clap before the first note falls,

their applause a mirror they hold to one another:

See how awake we are.

 

They wear your message like a badge

that costs the price of a ticket

and not a night of wrestling in the dark.

They leave lighter,

their righteousness stamped like a loyalty card,

proof they attended the sermon of the season.

 

But the Breath that bends galaxies

is not fooled by theatre of halos.

It does not count heads

or post likes.

It waits for the one heart

that cracks when the lights go out,

that walks home with a question

burning holes through the comfortable coat.

 

So paint for that heart.

Sing for the solitary spark

that hides behind all the clapping.

Let the Divine find you there…

where no funding pot can reach

and no audience can applaud.