And there I was. A witness to spontaneity and self-expression; to emancipation.
Not mine, however. Someone else entirely, but physically close. As in the very next seat.
"You are so composed," I must have said at some point.
"It's all those long years standing outside in the terminator line, waiting to enter," I believe she replied.
"Why do you come here then?" was my stupid question.
"The autumn theatricals and the chance to start again," was her all too brief answer.
Just then she stepped out of the shadows, breaking off from a wall of men, and onto the edge of the stage...her eyes beamed undiluted willpower. It is a gaze that both chills and warms, radiating and demanding trust in this singularly self-possessed presence.
In the forensic lighting, she had a sticky acid smile, her ****** in candid detail, stellar in spectra.
Everyone throws things at the understudy, but not this night. She danced against time with an audience of unknown monarchs; some with crowns, some with wings.
She held birdsong, truth slipping through her fingers, pollinating protagonists caught in the (third) act.
A night here is like wading in a pond with a jagged edge; the wind blows through and thoroughly, and still she stays calm, collective. She always seems to be waiting for something. Permanence seems out of reach; some great apocalyptic event is on the horizon, and she views the future tentatively.
"You are aware that everyone is looking at you?" I can't help inquiring.
“How can they not. On TV and film, there’s a bigger separation,” she says. “But when you’re breathing the same air, there’s definitely a reaction. Sometimes you feel a little bit like a ****** That’s part of the experience. The scary part is not the nudity."
Then she took a beat, and we subtly entered the frame of the play; away the bird flew, and she began to talk about grief and loss, her voice clotting, and so fast had the audience been beguiled that one softly sympathetic voice rang out from the front of the orchestra, as clear as a bell as she struggled to articulate her tangle of feelings: “We understand.”
Apr 13
Apr 13, 2026 at 4:30 AM UTC
And there I was. A witness to spontaneity and self-expression; to emancipation.
Not mine, however. Someone else entirely, but physically close. As in the very next seat.
"You are so composed," I must have said at some point.
"It's all those long years standing outside in the terminator line, waiting to enter," I believe she replied.
"Why do you come here then?" was my stupid question.
"The autumn theatricals and the chance to start again," was her all too brief answer.
Just then she stepped out of the shadows, breaking off from a wall of men, and onto the edge of the stage...her eyes beamed undiluted willpower. It is a gaze that both chills and warms, radiating and demanding trust in this singularly self-possessed presence.
In the forensic lighting, she had a sticky acid smile, her ****** in candid detail, stellar in spectra.
Everyone throws things at the understudy, but not this night. She danced against time with an audience of unknown monarchs; some with crowns, some with wings.
She held birdsong, truth slipping through her fingers, pollinating protagonists caught in the (third) act.
A night here is like wading in a pond with a jagged edge; the wind blows through and thoroughly, and still she stays calm, collective. She always seems to be waiting for something. Permanence seems out of reach; some great apocalyptic event is on the horizon, and she views the future tentatively.
"You are aware that everyone is looking at you?" I can't help inquiring.
“How can they not. On TV and film, there’s a bigger separation,” she says. “But when you’re breathing the same air, there’s definitely a reaction. Sometimes you feel a little bit like a ****** That’s part of the experience. The scary part is not the nudity."
Then she took a beat, and we subtly entered the frame of the play; away the bird flew, and she began to talk about grief and loss, her voice clotting, and so fast had the audience been beguiled that one softly sympathetic voice rang out from the front of the orchestra, as clear as a bell as she struggled to articulate her tangle of feelings: “We understand.”
Request permission to use this poem