Performing To A Blind Audience Poem by Phoebe Riley

Tonight I am going to outshine someone. Anyone.
I am sick and tired of being overlooked and tonight
I am rolling the dice. It’s a run of the mill day,
A sleepy charcoal with monotony twisting through the tarmac.

I squeeze shiny lycra in my palm.
Alone accompanied by an empty desk, mine. Tear. It was
in shreds and now the ballerina is in shreds, no costume
tonight. I sing skill onto the blackboard, the chalk’s

high-pitched screech wants to echo me, a shade of green
I would be a VIP, with a glimpse of an opening
But from now I will receive more claps. Anyone’s claps. The scorching frosted window pane
obtains an expensive receipt, crumbles away my forbidden flair.

I sing from the rooftops. I pirouette.
I congratulate my shadow. The artiste upstaged.
Every week, I enter the dance studio with legitimate wedge
for my own shiny black tap shoes. They won’t perform the transaction.

Ballerinas’ fallen from grace, no one left to outshine. I scribe the
agent and set the record straight, me the hotshot.
Absent reply. I polish my face, my shoes lace, cloaked in costume.
Metal weighs my fabric. The doll’s head shakes.