This is genuinely seriously fucking with my voice lessons?

[kiya]

Countenance

I would say
This world
Is not crushing me
Yet

Except—

Every muscle
In my face
Is knots,
Like I live
In a wince
From the searing
Light
Of scrutiny.

And the pain
And the pull
Is wrecking
The sweetness
Of my voice.

Comments

[graydon]

You know it's a sub-optimal situation when the minimum sufficient personal response has become "attain enlightenment", and it's not really all that obvious it would work.

[kiya]

You remain a master of idiosyncratically framed understatement.

Failing at enlightenment I am having to settle for tongue stretches and facial massage.

[graydon]

In the days of the White Queen there were a lot of hot damp towels laid on for the same sort of purpose. ("I'm stressed rigid and my face has set like this; perhaps I should do something about that prior to presenting myself to a social occasion.")

May things improve!

[kiya]

It is also arguably the case that I should get into our sauna more often, for as a person of northern European heritage 'do the sauna and then be in the chilly' makes both my body and my ancestors pleased with me.

[metahacker]

Amen.