The lonely parade (poem)

This line is my own.
Though can I suppose that
Anyone really knows
The time I spend alone?

As the sun illuminates the sky
All the passers by
Appear before me.

They wave a hand
As I walk along.
They listen to the sound
Of our shuffling feet.

Forward.  Forward I go.

But I do not see
The joyous throngs.
Their warmth, their praise
I refuse to prolong.
They're only here to demarcate, to pass
As I willingly display my boyish ass.
One half beat behind is where I play,
Finding it easy to meditate
on that which I care - helps me, helps me - maintain a stare
within the textured blackness of that bituminous slate
being pulled like taffy 'neath my gait.

What will it take to remove my smile?
When will I acknowledge these fettered miles?

Look up, young champion as you pass along!

Real love is the key.
Though finding it has been a chore.
Now that it's here, I habitually choose to ignore,
It's warmth, its steed is too regal to abhor.
Though not nearly as fanciful as I work to demand
Too much, too soon.  Give me a break.
Let's both sit down and pontificate. 
I need no one except my rhyme,
To find me, keep me, just a few steps behind. 

So I continue to bake in the hurtful glare
As I work to shun this masters' where.

Finally its descent ends the call
And my time is over
Before the fall.

Within the pitch, I'm without my line
Alone in the street.
No matter. 

Forward.  Forward I go.
As I gaze at...

No longer able to see the gumdrops below, I stop.
Everyone is gone, but he's still there?

I feel the weight of an impish stare.
I look up into darkness and reach out high above.

His mare is gone, it is only he.  His face, I find, steadies and shields. 
Until a swift bite of my flesh forces me to repeal.

I punch at the air in front of this pimp, too complacent to fall or even to limp.

The orb slowly rises.  Now I'm clinging to the curb.  All hope is lost. 

I kiss the concrete and smile at my find. 
I'm back to that place!  Just one step behind. 

Look up, young champion!  Your ass is mine!

The bit, it hurts as it chatters my teeth.
The straps and belts cinch tight under my seat.

I am yanked UP to walk
only to march forward down the street.
Though no one watches us enact this stylish feat.

My limbs are his limbs along with my head.
There's little I can do as I consider the dead.
The dead who walk next to me along this path
To hell and back as we face our Maker's wrath.
Their countenances are bleak, such squeam of the crop,
like burnt gingerbread soldiers anxious to stop.

No more delays.  No more reprise.  We now do his bidding.
His work.  His lies. 

The love is gone.  It could not survive without being ushered in
Whilst defeating the lives.  The lives that trip up and slow and
chafe the true passage of time as seen by a waif. 
A waif who embellishes and stretches along each passing moment
Before it is gone.