Dancing in the Dark

I spent summer cloistered behind the curtain of my room, chest wrapped in stolen bra & panicked sweat. Woke each morning, ribs check-marked with the red echo of skin’s dreaming—what it might become. First learned the failures of my body in what a lover abandoned. Saw, in her discarded clothes, my chest as absence. Sold the whole season on a dream of looking like someone else. Danced with a candle’s soft pirouette of smoke, Springsteen crackling in the speakers like harsh light across a mirror’s torn silver skin. He sings “Come on, baby” “this town” “’ll be carving you up” “you gotta stay” “baby” “I’m sick of ” “this” & I wanna sing back, finish this broken lyric: “body.” I let the song play over & over, ’til Bruce’s voice fails him. I wanna press my lips to the hole his voice has burned in the dark & ask him if he ever stopped wanting to change. I stand in my bathroom with all the lights off, clothed in nothing but the word “man,” the first lie I ever stripped off my tongue. I shave down to my scalp. Each strand ignites, hair of brilliant wicks, stubble to sparks, lighting my face, leaving a silhouette of ash.

▼

I spent summer ███ behind the curtain of my █████ panicked
sweat ███ each morning checked ███ the ██ skin ██████▌
███ my ████████ lover abandoned. Saw ██████████
my chest ███████████ looking like █████████████
██▌a candle ██████████ in the ██████ mirror ████▌
███ I wanna ████ finish this ███▌broken▐▌“body.” ████
██████ over & over, ███████ I ██ press my lips to ███
█ the dark & ask █████ to change. █ stand in my bathroom █
lights off, clothed in █████ “man,” the first lie █████████
of █▌my tongue. ██ I shave ██ my ███ hair ██████ to sparks
████ my █ face ███████ ash. ████

▼

“Check █ my ██ look ███ in the ███
mirror █ I wanna ██ change ▌My ███
█ clothe █ s █ my █ hair ██ my face”  █