The Mousetrap

[Intro] Curtain up. Lights low. Watch the king watch the show. [Verse 1] I hired the room to tell my secret, painted blood on a borrowed sleeve. Put a crown on a trembling actor, told him, “Die where the court can see.” The guilty love a polished mirror till the glass starts naming names. So I set the chairs in a pretty half-circle and let the silence find its flame. My mother sits with her pearls too careful. My uncle laughs with a locked-up jaw. Every lord in the room plays marble, but one pulse knocks through the wall. I don’t need steel. I don’t need thunder. I don’t need heaven to split the roof. Give me one scene with the right poison in it. Give me theater sharp enough for proof. [Chorus] This is the mousetrap. Don’t look away. Smile for the players. Bleed for the play. If your clean hands shake when the false king drops, this is the mousetrap. The curtain locks. [Verse 2] The actor pours death in a sleeping ear, and the room forgets how to breathe. One fake body folds on the carpet, one real face starts losing its teeth. There. That blink. That little flinch. That prayer trapped behind the tongue. A crown can sit still for a kingdom, but guilt cannot sit that long. He rises before the scene can finish. Calls for light like light can save. All the torches in Denmark couldn’t wash that shadow from his face. My friends look scared. My blood looks certain. My father’s ghost stands near the door. I came to test a whispered murder, and the whisper answered more. [Chorus] This is the mousetrap. Don’t look away. Smile for the players. Bleed for the play. If your clean hands shake when the false king drops, this is the mousetrap. The curtain locks. [Bridge] Clap if you’re innocent. Stand if you’re not. Laugh for the court with your throat in a knot. Call it fiction. Call it art. Funny how a story knows where to start. No blade touched him. No guard drew breath. Just a painted murder wearing his sweat. If truth won’t speak when I ask it plain, I’ll dress it up and make it entertain. [Final Chorus] This is the mousetrap. Don’t look away. Smile for the players. Bleed for the play. If your clean hands shake when the false king drops, this is the mousetrap. The curtain locks. [Outro] Curtain down. Lights gone. One man rose, and the room knew wrong. [End]