Static waltz

Copyright @Delia Kelly 2026

There’s a pantomime artist wandering through my gallery,
in the tender solitude of night.
Not quite a Fitzgerald scene, but not far from it.
Nirvana’s Nevermind album is playing in the background – such a cliché.
The lights hum faintly, like echoes of forgotten applause,
while I sit alone on a marble bench, half-shadow, half-thought,
gazing at the paintings – my paintings –
each one bleeding a different version of me.
As I exhale, I feel like my lungs are made of sharp glass
that shatters fast inside my chest.

Breathe in – it’s just a storm.

A thousand jagged splinters are now slicing through my breath;
a hymn of revolt against my own irregular heartbeat.

Breathe out – A thousand thoughts keep flooding my mind, trapping me in their web.

and I just drown within.

And I choke.
And I choke…
I cannot breathe.

The heavy air turns solid in my throat,
my lungs collapse,
and my whole little world narrows to the sound of my breath.

It fills my skull,
a brutal rhythm I cannot stop.

It beats like a mad thunder:
so
so
so
bound to drop.

While touching my chest and wondering if this is my last moment alive,
I see he is now gliding through my paintings.

He is the artist of all time,
a Kafkaesque silhouette painting his loneliness
in silent screams.

In the meanwhile – the lights, again, like nervous saints, begin to tremble:
They buzz
They bruise
They won’t die clean.

He’s dancing faster – my Fred Astaire on fractured dawn
while that cold glass sighs beneath my skin.

At midnight, we finally face each other: two hollow phantoms mid-spin
And now
The agony is over
The thick air folds
The floor thrums like a held breath.

He spins in the limelight – like a tragedy dressed in grace.
and our hearts slowly collide, unmindful of their fragility.
and life keeps drumming quiet…

Creating a new “heart-shaped box” carved from silence and sin
Making me feel complete before tomorrow’s grand opening.

I guess I should have always asked sooner…
Where have you been?

Note:
“Tender solitude of night” is used as an allusion to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel Tender Is the Night (1934).
“Heart-shaped box” is used as an allusion to Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box,” the first single from In Utero (1993).