billie dancer poetry

when I lift my eyes to meet the mirror's stare back at me, palms brushing over soft fuzz crowning my head, I'm caught in a moment suspended—boundaries neither crossed nor entirely intact: not quite vanished yet never wholly present.

in most ways I’m not sorry but wherever these threads unravel; I remain deprived, laid-bare ribs clutched in starvation—shorn hair circling the sink—an impulsive episode of release through self-destruction.

hidden beneath a mattress stained with innocence reaped are letters addressed beforehand. Sometimes they fall apart under slow fingers, piece by piece but each time I find where remnants linger—caught in defiant writing.

a gap separates me from it now; I'm suspended somewhere between everything that was and everything that will be—caught without footing in the middle. It digs deep enough within me to lift my head off the ground where I sit under the table, thumbs pushing hard against my temples.

something tumbles out of me; tender and wounded dying at my feet. I watch it pulse, a fragile thing gasping for breath in the stillness of the air. The pain roots me in place until I’m tipping my head back, eyes brimming with salt. It stings sharply, claws at me, screaming itself free. And then it's gone; impossible to recall or reclaim.

beneath clouds dark as bruised wine, something spews forth from above; a lie, a promise. I find my tongue tracing the number 24 into my lip—a quiet birthday ritual—feeling unchanged but there's this yawning gap now; a separation between who I was before and who I might become—yet stuck never being quite here nor there.

i want what i can’t have; a house by the ocean with a you-shaped print in everything of mine.