Theater

“You don’t have what it takes,”
she said to me.

And I believed her.

And so for nearly twenty years
I silenced the calling.

I let myself forget–
The smell of dust and paint,
and the alchemy of imagination.
Holy temple of our humanity
holding us gently.
The way the air carries the echo
and weight of every story ever told.
This must be what they mean
when they talk about magic.
And now
again
at last–
The creak of the boards
as I take my place in the light,
and speak truth out into the darkness.