Feeling: sparkly
Listening to: electronic buzz
Reading/Watching: Sex, Lies, and Videotape

Anyone remember when I used to write poetry? I wish that I still did, because it could be very satisfying at times. But now I feel as if my ideas have dried up- I look at all the things I wrote when I was younger and (even more) squirrelly-headed, and wonder why I can't seem to turn a phrase like that anymore.

And since the majority of my poetry was so reflexive (aren't most amateurs'?), it seems almost egotistical to want to start writing again, to want to start thinking so deeply about myself again.

Regardless, I came across this one while cleaning out old files on my craptop, about how I feel being a performer. It's interesting, because it's still appropriate; I wrote it almost four years ago.

"Tinkerbell"

Barefoot on the mirror's face
Her laugh is broken glass
So strong, with apple-kneed legs
and wide open eyes
(no shadows in the reflection)
and is that glitter trail
her hopeful glow?
or residue as she wears herself
thin?

Under the spotlight
her limbs akimbo
her light drowned in glare and
fluorescent flash bulbs
(she doesn't really shine
in the frying pan)

Give her dark
and space and
breath.
She'll fill a room for you
twinkling all the while.

You believe in her, and it keeps her alive.
Your praise throws her wide
Sends her soaring.

How long? before that smile
that applause
is empty
to keep her going? How long
before she knows your teeth are grimace
your hands sycophantic noise?

How long? before she stops believing
in you?

(I think this one, even though it's long and awkward, is hitting me hard at the moment, just because I auditioned for another musical with some of my friends from the last one, and I wasn't cast. Several of my friends were, but not me. I'm sort of being a child about it, I'm feeling rejected--because I was--and sometimes friends' loyal assurances are so much empty noise.)

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