Lessons In Ballet
by Michael Doyle

No one dares wake Suzy from her sleep.
Her dreams of ballet run very deep.
With the slippers on her young feet,
The Devil's own she's gone to meet.

Ruby red paints the airport's walls,
As she answers dance's sacred call.
Rushing headlong into the stormy night,
Something in the rain doesn't feel right.

The flood waters whisper of a witch, 
And Suzy feels her fear beginning to twitch.
Shadows flicker through the wooded drive,
The question becomes, will she safely arrive?

Gaining no admittance at the school door,
She finds that she'll need to explore
Her options;  her mind takes a run through the woods.
She'd escape from this nightmare if she only could. 

In the school lobby, a ballerina finds bright and vivid walls,
As she rushes to the elevator down the rustic halls.
Forced from the school, she is startled by the absurdity,
Knowing only to take each step and to do so urgently.

The outside wind blows the curtains against the window,
While lightning makes thunder from the hidden shadows.
Stab and then again stab pierces her from the night,
Suddenly, we become aware of the questions of the light.

A twist of the blade makes its way through her heart.
All of this is done in the name of Satanic art.
Crashed through the glass and chased scream after scream.
Hush, don't you wake, it's only the worst sort of dream.

A painted skylight breaks through, so the dancer would hang.
Somewhere in the midst, a wide-eyed globin sang.
Blood puddles in patterns along the floor, 
The pain of still life that no one can long ignore.

Just as suddenly, with the next day's morn,
Suzy was admitted to the school feeling a bit worn.
Introduced and thrown into the wicked ways of the school,
She learned how people were there under a coven's rule.

Here in this womb of shadows bleeding vividly red,
There is room for mystery and the suddenly dead.
In one possessed motion, Suzy's innocence is lost,
And only Satan's daughters know the truth of cost.

(c) October 17, 2025   Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved