Dancer Daughter

Written for Writing.com's February Pretty As A Picture contest. It's not posted there yet though, because I'm too lazy to put it in bitem format right now.


Down my cheeks slip my blackened tears
The only prize for my dancing years
All the pain as I strove for the perfect dance
Forgotten because of a stolen chance.

Jealousy poisoned her graceful hands
As she watched my dancing grand
She was anointed with holy water
And I the whore’s dancer daughter

As I twirled and leapt on stage
In the most perfect dance of my age
Her green-eyed monster broke free
She took my dancing joy from me

Under my ribs slipped her tiny rich knife
As my corset drank my leaking life
I beseeched the dancing girl
She answered: “You are scum and I a pearl.”

She skipped into the darkened wings
And with a twirl she started to sing
Leaving me to die in the fading stage light
And haunt the ballet each glittering night.