My spotlight fades and the crowd explodes.

Inner ear thoughts question my presentation and I wonder if my stance was too shifty. I wonder how my poem affected you.
I wonder if it rippled through the wrinkles in your brain as brightly and loudly as the thunderous applause under hot lights.

Tantalizing the open door of your bigotry I find my words sliming at my feet. A puddle of what I intended absorbing itself back into me. I feel it rush in between my toes, injecting itself into my veins and feigning euphoria.

My fingertips glide through the air with the high from my poetry gnashing around in my skull. But it's not a gleeful bouncing of anxious excitement.

The pounding in my head is muffled by the compliments. The sound of all my strife, drowned out by the burning visage of my ethereal form.  A spectre of me standing on stage.

And as I find my seat, and the clapping dies. We see another ghost on stage,

The light shining past him. And his words all plaster themselves to the ceiling and begin melting from the bulbs. Dripping down slowly on the audience.

When it's finally all dropped off the ceiling, the crowd will be gone. And none will remember how a rainbow of words stained their plate glass eyes. They blink and it's washed away, drained into the sewer of passing ideas. The water reflecting angry Facebook rants and precious moments with loved ones.

My eyes see god in the spotlight when the microphone sets before me. My words are only made for the light, they fade as they make their way up to god. No substance to carry them as they dissipate.