You woke up branded with the lines of pillow creases, thunderbolted tree roots across your cheek.

In turn, last night's mascara stains, the ivory hotel pillowcase, each one leaving their mark on the other, looks like you're even.

You say good, good morning to them when you walk in and they don't correct you as they spray vodka on the armpits of the

dancer's costumes. We learn these tricks along the way. The flesh-tone bandage wrap covered by skin

colored fishnets because you will cover the wound no matter how deep it is. No one ever knew. And baby,

that's show business for you. Coffee, stretch, piano keys, vocal warm-ups in a locker

room shower, eyelash glue, a photo of him on the mirror, a sweat and vanilla perfume,

the cracking of joints, and the distant beat of a drum, the curtain call, the monotonous thrill of

it all, plan it out so it doesn't look planned. Ten different backup plans.

If your red-bottomed heel breaks, you will keep strutting, balancing on the balls of your blistered feet.

Know your exits, shoulders back, eyes up. Hit your marks, your winks, sparks. Tell them a story like it's an intimate dinner party.

The looks on their wondrous faces,

their expressions like mood rings. Isn't it all so majestic? Of course it is. It's a lot of other

things too. Remember this city? You've been here before in another life on another tour.

Remember her? She's got a mortgage now. Straight teeth where there'd been metal brackets, standing

with her eight-year-old daughter. You mouth, I know you, in the millisecond gap in your choreography.

To you, she will look exactly the same age as the first time you saw her. She will always be

14 and a half. Remember, lock right back into the footwork. Any misstep is a misstep. You must remember

everything, but mostly this. The crowd is your king, who has ruled over you for centuries, benevolently,

for the most part. Perhaps some day they will despise you again. Perhaps it is not a matter of if,

but when. They'll reassess your merits and then take a magnifying glass to the

shiny bug. Deflate all the heroes they had decided she was, and maybe they'll do it just because.

...