Getting Comfortable with Discomfort

It’s been thirty years

since I sang

amongst others.

I have been

the last raindrop

dripping

from a balcony

after a shower or storm – presence

noted on paved parchment

as the clouds’ song fades

and sky, birds, traffic, leaves on a breeze

begin a new movement

while I –

I evaporate

into yearning. O, to sing again!

And, so, I am.

Yet what’s this,

raining on my parade?

An atonal storm

of stinging, needling almost-icicles

of sforzando despair.

I don’t belong here.

I am so

out

of my element.

Was it me the director meant

when he called, Altos,

someone’s singing legato?

Fuck. Arias of ƒƒƒƒƒƒ-words.

And ƒuck you, discomfiture.

I am unmasking my tangled self,

Soul and I tangoing in the aisles,

soaring – off key, so be it –

to a balcony.

I am done

with feeling undone.

A 9 in a precision prestissimo legion of 6s.

I, too, can breathe

from my belly

rather than live in my head,

exhausting my voice

into extinction via doubt’s

ever-vocalizing strain.

Like a rainbow appearing

on a kitchen floor needing mopping,

I will sing.

A bedazzled, be-hued part of a Voice

so much bigger, more chromatic

than I – Her arms

cradling me in light.

Lifting me beyond

that high D

even as my toes –

sparkle manicured

in A beneath middle C –

root, rerouting my song.

©Jenine Bsharah Baines 2022