With stretched arms that hurt growing muscles you stand alone on the floor.
Your heart, your sweat, you are offered to the popsicle stick figures in front of you.

Blurry ovals make faces but a billion hearts beat inside of them.

They feel your growing insides, they feel your bitter cries, they feel your performance that starts from the pit of your stomach and swims to the top of your throat, letting out a constrained cry.

You pretend its part of the act, text you once read on a page, but deep down they all know the fabricated blood that soaks your shirt is not part of the performance, it’s a part of you.

An eruption of sound bursts through the black box from a billion hands as you collapse on the dusty wood, encompassing everything you’ve ever worked for.

You are spent, you are stabbed, you are in Shakespeare.