tempo rubato

the pianist reveled the ballerinas in the room

as they pirouetted for the allegro tune,

the limelight don’t shine equally enough for each one of them—

one too harsh, one too dim.

chatters: they can get louder than fortissimo

yet they danced, still, for the audience impassive.

there was a silhouette hiding in the far left,

a figure unseen to the conductor.

slowing down, speeding up, changing positions at will,

unfurling an arabesque unsolicited by the aria.

stunned by a rather rebellious than a tone-deaf performer,

they gazed and gasped in harmony,

staring at the eccentric entity gracing the same stage,

creaking the same hardwood floor.

no eyes were made known of the dancer’s idiosyncrasy,

rhythmically, flawlessly in motion—

key of E and a hundred and forty beats per minute—

but few love nonconformity.

no one reveled a ballerina in the room

as the pianist’s fingers skip from one note to another,

beholding an orchestral synergy.

but there’s the artiste: the world's a stage they take pleasure in,

beyond music, beyond movement, gracing so distantly now

from soles tapping on the carpet,

from lips with so much to say.

it’s all we need to become:

to secretly pulse outside the metronome

of a melody we fade away with.