How many more Valentine's
How many more birthdays
How many more New Year's
How many more of tomorrow's rays

How much more strength
How much more perseverance
How much more fortitude
How much more despondence

How many more circles
How many more misleading clues
How many more loops
How many more déjà vus

How much more sadness
How much more to be paid
How much more discomfort
How much more to be laid

How many more questions
How much more time
How many more answers
How much more must I rhyme

How many more roses
How many more seasons
How many more Valentine's
How much more to achieve balance

If I was an apple,
You'd be my tree,

If I was a bee,
You'd be my pollen

If I was the earth,
You'd be my sun.

As you can see,
I need you,

Although I'd never tell,

I love you.

toes are cold against the bathroom floor, tiles, pink
and i am balancing bobby pins on the tips of my fingers while
my sister rattles the locked door ****, there's no fire but her voice speaks flames, tongues of red that echo off the walls and slowly burn out,
and i let the faucet run away with itself and it gladly agrees and
I crack open the window because I'm still learning to breathe.
And hell to it all when I turn on the radio and my sister's still screaming and maybe the house really is burning down but I wouldn't know
the only balance I've ever felt is at the edges of my hands,

So I pin my hair back and I go

One can turn One's eyes towards Darkness,
One can turn One's eyes towards Light,
but I've found that it's most healthy
setting an eye quite firmly on each
with One's mind focused right in between;
while living right now before it's too late.

The rosy-cheeked captured
between metal sculptures
that are positioned properly,
feng shui.
Mistaking the pseudo-corridor
as a route to the restroom,
embarrassing herself
in a new culture,
growing uneasy,
gathering steam on cheek.

Snickering from elders
loosen up her ****** lines,
realigning the room.
Guided back to her seating space,
ease comes more naturally.
Meals as important and the
affection she shares with him,
making her a cartographer,
mapping love and territory unknown,
especially this family space.

In every thunderstorm, there is a million suicides,
each raindrop an explosion of life--
no, death to create new life.

The circle of life,
that vicious cycle of perfected balance.

Let me be a raindrop.

When I was little my mother put me in several ballet classes in hopes to bring some grace to my stumbling gait.

I grew up walking on eggshells, wobbling to keep my balance on a tightrope that never really ended.

 My instructor pinched my thighs and shook her bony finger at me every tuesday and thursday for three and a half years.

4 am, I'm still tiptoeing around the creaks in the stairs as if anyone would notice an empty bed.

 This Christmas I came across the broken reminents of the ballerina ornaments my younger sister used to play with.

I never did master the delicate posture I was expected to adopt. My feet fell a bit too heavy, I suppose, on the ice tonight.

I'm not cold anymore, just exhausted from attempting to balance the wrong things for too long.

My life is flashing before my eyes, but all I see is a younger version of myself practicing Grand Battements on thin ice while everyone slept.