Gymnastics Allegory Poem by Raj Dronamraju

Incident on the balance beam
Chalk dust flying, feet and hands whirring like hummingbirds
Confrontation on the uneven bars
Someone will end up broken in several places

Little girl bodies find the violence in exploitation but they apply it outwards
Away from the original source
Don't grow on me, I could hurt you
When they hold up my score, the numbers act as ammunition

Flexible longshot
You are the apparatus part and parcel
Waiting for me to do many things
Chapped, taped, torn, of all the disadvantages, they make us hate one another
On the apparatus, we are as impersonal as gladiators
Don't need to stretch out or otherwise make limber what I wanted to say