Chicago Audition

I used to walk into a theater and it was salvation.

Stage lights and people who filled up a room, 

I was happy to watch them for hours.

I wanted to become some part of that

some part of the instant admiration

some part of the laughing so hard you fall on the floor

some part of the ease 

and the confidence.

Feeling like this place fit

when for so long everything else was itchy and not quite right

was breathing with the lungs of a drowned woman.

Have I changed or has the world?

Now I walk into a theater and everyone is still there

same as before

but I've spent so long chasing a dream 

that knowing they are all closer to each other

than to me

squeezes my guts out and trails them on the floor. 

I am no great singer

I do not need to be

but it still feels unfair that I have to work twice as hard to sound half as good.

All I really want to be, is loved by the soda girls

fizzy and warm and sweet

unattainable

not unkind,

but they don't notice me.

I don't know why I want this.

I should not

keep chasing love

that does not belong to me

but even a little of their attention is another shot

and I guess I'm an addict. 

Why has my sacred space

become a popularity contest I cannot win?