I’m all out of words.

Like a wound that has bled dry, leaving its scabs on my knees
with dark broken flesh tearing apart from the sides
and grey veins spreading across, as if reaching out beyond my skin.

I struggle to express my thoughts in words that don’t seem periodic,
to form sentences that do justice to the lines inside my head
like a wheel that gets stuck in a rut; afraid to spin out to conquer the curve
or the swing that keeps moving back and forth in my garden out front
with no wind and no push, failing to stop when it faintly brushes against the swamp.

Verses have lost their rhythm.
An ode to the prima’s fall from grace
as I watch her shank bend en pointe and her heel slip from the ground
and the whole stage comes undone.

Some nights, I scream in silence
at the blank white wall that faces me,
almost challenging me,
mocking my insecurities. The scratches at the edges of the wall break the monotony,
adding shades of brown to the holes that my nails continue to dig
deeper.

Deeper,
still waiting for the tear to fall out of my eye
held back at its threshold by a false sense of modesty
as I fail to articulate my slowing heartbeat
yet again.

Yet again, I hold you in contempt
even though my finger stretches out of my clenched fist to point at a faint reflection
of my thinning sense of self

And slowly my mind stops

there is but nothing left to say.