Just a Tile

Tock. Tick. Pound. Pound.

Hands slick. Heart found.

Drop. Drip. Face down’d

tears slip to the ground.

“Are you okay all alone back here?”

“Is it alright if I pray, my dear?”

A moment until I step on the stage;

my heart beats too heavy to stay.

Deep sorrow and deeper joy

batter my soul like waves.

Terror is faded gray glory -

God, why’d you give me this day?

Darling,

Deep breath in, shoulders back, swallow back the bile;

one hundred faces staring girly, make it worth their while.

You see their eyes and you know their names so look at them and smile.

All of this is a gorgeous mosaic and you are just a tile.