Out of the Cannon

I’m sitting here in this cannon

Thinking

Like, what is my life?

I’m wearing this stupid striped suit
I got a helmet on, which is—

I mean, I’m flinging my body

Into the air

And I have a helmet on

Why?

Like, if my body goes into a wall

What’s the helmet going to do?

It just seems dumb

This whole thing seems dumb

I can hear people cheering

Sick people

People who like seeing a guy

Get shot out of a cannon

Like that’s entertainment

Like it’s magic

Like, if you put enough pressure behind anything
It’ll eventually give

And you’ll see something

Break

That’s what this is

This little cannon stunt

It’s just the breaking of a man

Me being the man

I used to train the poodles

And then my manager was like—

The poodles are out

And he told me they were going to transition me

Into Death Defying

Where he thought there were some really nice opportunities for me

And I got all excited

Because I thought that meant I could do the trapeze

But he was like—‘Ohhh trapeze is a subdivision of Death Defying

Where I really don’t have any pull’

So that was a letdown

And then I was like, Ugh, he’s gonna say Cannon

And sure enough, he said, ‘You know where’s that a lot of room for growth

Within the company?

Cannon’

Now I’m in a cannon

I don’t know what happened to the poodles

I still think about them from time to time

But then I just get sad

Because let’s face it

It’s not like they had a retirement plan

Like, they’re not sitting in some Poodle House right now

Playing bridge and chatting about the old days

My leg itches
And I can’t scratch it

Because I can’t move

There is no room in this cannon

If I sneeze

I’ll hit my head against the side

And knock myself out

And now I’m actively trying to make myself sneeze

Just so I can be out of it

When I finally get shot out of this thing

But you know

There’s a part of me

Just a little part

That has this…idea

Like, maybe I’ll get shot out of this thing

And I’ll learn something

That only people who get shot out of cannons know

Because there are so few of us living

Because the mortality rates are really quite staggering

Maybe I’ll learn that

When you’re up that high
Looking down

You see that thing that everybody wants to see

A new perspective

A bigger picture

A broader view of life

Of, you know, where you’re going

What you’re doing

How you wound up getting shot

Out of a cannon

And maybe I’ll land

Softly

In the net

The two high school kids we hired

Set up for me

And I’ll know why I’m here

Not just in this cannon, but like—

HERE here, you know?

That’s what I’m hoping for anyway

And also, not to hit a tree

And, if I do, to hit it headfirst

So the helmet will take the brunt of it

That’s it, really

That’s all I can hope for