Performing

I squeeze my trembling knees

tightly to my chest,

clench my eyes and teeth

and try to calm by pounding breast.

Tears escape my eyelids,

overflowing with my fears

trickling through the many sets

I've played inside and out for years.

Like so many starving actors

snatching pieces of my brain

(I'm not sure I can play a scene

from the pieces that remain).

Shadowed figures flail and pitch

in dramatic fits of rage

and laughingly destroy by script

as they overtake my stage.

But out there in the audience

through darkness soft, I hear

two hands clapping just for me

as I enter from the rear.

I say my lines, stand on my mark

(continues, the applause).

I speak my last soliloquy...

Silence...(with my pause).

Then follows an explosion

with cheering and ovation;

the house lights flood the audience

of only Him in adoration.

And all at once I realize

that He has been them all

director, writer, audience--

He, smiling, cries for curtain call!