Stints and Stunts

A dream showed me in and I

tiptoed into the lie,

an unripe ballerina.

Fate's fool, porcelain,

I pirouetted through
the red curtain
and shed my all.

I shed my skin, my tenderfoot;
became a silhouette, a shadow put
before countless eyes
that looked down upon me
like stars winking,
each to each.

I danced;
the spotlight romanced me
until we couldn't go on
being one.

Light escaped then
freezing me, erasing me
and showing up elsewhere.
The Coda was but a breach.
Stars winked, each to each.

Light escaped then
like the flight of the soul
from its mold.
The beam shrunk,
left me a trunk-
leafless, lifeless.

"Death of a star", they said
and it showed up elsewhere.
"Birth of a star", they said.

On and off it went,
the momentary scent,
lighting and looting;
eclipsing the show.

Death breathed behind the curtain-
eyes could never know
that the life of the shadow
was trapped in light.