"Welcome back.
We knew you'd return.
Your empty grey chair has sat there
and missed you, without you its spurned.
Its stared at us as we've spoken,
To each other of things unstoppable,
We’ve tried not to ask where you went,
But the question was just undroppable.

We get a half hour less now,
The fitness club has grown out,
But you’re back so it doesn’t matter.
Without you there was nothing
to shout about.

You were our prime example,
We didn’t know why you’d gone,
We had faith in your failure
and we were correct,
So sing us our favourite song."

((He stands))

Hi, I’m John, and I smoke.
I’ve got a bad job,
So I’m constantly broke.
I come here to stop this,
But I don’t talk like me,
I speak in rhyme so that
my speech can roam free.

I’m dishonest with you,
I’ve never spoken the truth,
I tell you how I was bullied,
But I go Home -
((He winces at that))
and I feel that I’m still not free'd
because that’s not what bothered me.

I’m not a big time addict,
I’m not here for the same reason as you
((Points now to Patrick))
Lucky Strikes aren’t my brand,
I chose to say them due to style,
So now ill tell the truth, for just a 'lil while.

I live alone, as you all know,
((He started with truth,
From here he lets it grow))
I can’t do this, I’ve gotta go...
((Pleas from the group rain on him
and a single tear drops to the floor,
It plummets toward the dusty gym
as he spins his head t'ward the door.))

I can’t stop what I do, and I won’t,
I can’t even try ((points to Emma)) like you don’t.
you tell us you do, that you’ve tried prevention
but you'll never leave, because of all this attention.
You stand here and force out crocodiles
they eventually flow like water on the Nile,
These people lap them up, and draw their strength,
But me, I absorb them in sand,
And ignore them at length.

I’m here because I have to be.
I’m here because I need her to be near me.
((Emma opens her mouth in protest
but at this moment she's already second guessed,
He was talking of her before - of her falseness,
But now - he's moved on to a different stress.))

I stand here, and I stare out of that window,
Her dancing class is through there
I feel you should know.
She always wondered about the mysteries of the Tango,
The wonder of the Waltz,
And laughed at pervert's dark Fandango.

I paid for her lessons,
I’m not just some stalker,
When she's caught in the rain
with my umbrella I walk her.
((He looks up now, for inspiration,
But sees only flickering electric,
-- A thousand bulbs, all stating imitation.
He bats his eyelids, and fights his fears,
But they flow now, as freely as his tears.))

We get on quite well, I’ve known her a while,
I’ve cried at her frown, and laughed at her smile,
we've Moshed together, to bad local music,
As mere teenagers, watched others lose it.
We’ve sat together, many a time,
Polished gold into sparkles
and scraped away slime.

((He sees her now, she twirls past his vision,
But the murky sticker filth window
creates sensory division))
but she's always detached,
Somewhere else in her mind,
((He looks into his past,
The Group sees it’s not kind))

She’s always thinking of someone else.
((At this point he raises one hand,
And falls back to his chair,
Hiding tears and cold commands))

I really need a Cigarette.
((Mary's pack is out first
because it’s kept in her hoodie pocket,
She flips it open and offers,
Though normally she'd lock it.))

This is against the rules in our group
but I’m leaving tonight, to somewhere else
tortured, droop.
I’ll light up now, maybe set off the bells,
Then - ill run to her and we'll hide in the cells,
No one's ever down there,
The school itself doesn’t use it,
I know of its existence because I used to abuse it.
It used to be the place I’d go
to be alone, and let poetry flow.
I’ll tell her there, just how I feel,
-- I’ll watch her in repulsion reel,
Same as the last time, and the time before,
My speech will end with her marching out the door.

She never stays long -- just moments after I’ve finished.
((He takes a long drag,
The cigarette is diminished))
She leaves me alone - she leaves me so cold,
-- She leaves me, in a world where the evil snow scolds.
Where your senses are mixed, distraught, destroyed,
That’s what happens when your emotions have been toyed.

((He drags again and looks around in disgust))
Look at yourselves, leaning forward in lust!
You feed on my pain, like a vampire to blood,
You’ve opened my veins and swallowed the flood.
You act like you’re better, but slightly the same,
But you’re all only here for personal gain.
I sit here and I let you know what’s going on
So it will never be something you stumble upon.
((Never fall in love, his brain tells him to say,
but there’s a few other things that just wont go away))

Fall in love if you choose,
Love moderately, or too much,
Exhaust your relationship
And your partner's crotch,
But never, ever aim too high,
Or you'll be scorched by the sun,
Like Icarus ripping the sky.
As you tumble and probably twist
-You'll squirm; all panicked-
I just know this.
You'll plummet and won’t stop,
Outwards you'll call,
But she won’t catch you in the middle
of your lethal fall.

((He drops his yellowed dog-end
in the middle of The Group, without sound,
Stamps on it, and creates a resonating pound.
The smoke wreathes up, and reaches the sprinkler and
a few Electronic Heartless Devices tinker,
They don’t know - don’t care, what their actions will cause,
Don’t hear John or choose not to,
Receive his massive applause.
The alarm sounds, and John marches to the door as
the girl spins and stops, middle of step forty four.
He waves her over, she stops at the glass,
He smiles sweetly, in obvious farce.))
C'mon, lets go, I’ve got some things to say.
((And The Group, dumbstruck still
-- Watch them both walk away.))