From The Wings

All the world’s a stage

I watch light scatter across hard plywood

Coated in layers of paint

Sprayed colors, black, a wood floor, black

Blue water and sand, black, brickwork, black

Sheets of work and memory

The human body renews every seven years

I am still twelve somewhere

Someone is always watching

We have chosen to let them

I place my bags and coat and keys and day on the ground

I pull myself up and enter the welcoming rays

Center stage

Upstage and downstage were terms coined 

when stages were literally angled down towards the audience

I hold all the nicknames and inside jokes from everyone I’ve met

Break a leg

Break a lot more to live

Break your heart, your spirit, and your leg

I push my arms high, higher

The stage lights are hot

I still shiver with their cyclopian stare

Each scar and bruise I hold is a canvas

Warm house lights, cold ghost lights

A theatre is never to be truly empty

I am both illuminated and unknown

There are parts of me I am yet to find and understand

Even with my eyes closed, I know you are there

Peering through a one wayed barrier 

Wondering if the part I play is a life you lead

May I help you come to understand yourself?