While I'm sleeping, my shadow dances.

She creeps out from under me, cautiously at first, careful not to wake me.

Only when she is confident in her freedom does she begin to waltz over the flowers of my old wallpaper.

Hauntingly, she sings the songs that I have never been able to find the words for,

she sings of the things that I have been afraid to say.

In what I lack, she gains.

The manifestation of my doubts and fears, she is able to make them into something beautiful,

something fleeting but tangible.

Nothing less than graceful, she carelessly glides around the room,

flawlessly leaping and twirling.

Sympathetic of the flesh that weighs me down,

but also envious of my existence.

For she is just my shadow,

and if I'm lucky, I can catch her out of the corner of my eye,

slipping back into her rightful place,

forever condemned to be just that--

a shadow.