On Terror

You whisper:

“Wait for the song to begin, we will see how it goes”

“It will be alright”

“Everything will resolve itself”

But in that space between chaos and resolution is purgatory

There is no net to catch us if we fall

I’ve seen so many people collapse from

The thin floss we call tightrope

Their blood runs like watershed across the floor

And it’s my DNA slipping down the drain,

Being scrubbed to the edges of our ring

“Wait for the beginning,” you say

But beginning is chaos and

I’ve been asking for it to end for four centuries

The tips of our gowns are already frayed from the fire that lines our stage

And I was delivered here so late,

With cloth that would never hold

This music was never meant for a body made of earth

And tendrils made of bush

This praise does not honor my God, this worship does not honor my love

Corsets on my waist and iron in my hair

Will not mold me to the picture your composer dreamt for you

Yet, even this song does not fulfil the prayers murmured in your image

They were beautiful and

This framework is almost close enough,

I can taste it on my fingertips

I want to sit at its dinner table, eat its jumbuliah of promises,

Let it nourish my body, build bones and muscles strong enough

To process a code plucked from a sepia color wheel

To move with a harmony

That does not not heed to discrimination

But

This composition can barely sustain a melody that can accommodate

What our body does

And what our body needs

As you continue to stomp towards your destiny,

My sweat continues to pool with my blood at my slipping feet

My knees creak at every pliet, my arms tremble with exertion

I am tired

So when you tell me to wait and see

As if my bruises haven’t already formed

As if I don’t already have tape wrapped around my big toe — to keep it from cracking

As if all of this is practice for a show that hasn’t yet happened,

How am I not to be terrified