Butterflies and Waiting in the Wings

You know when you are waiting for something to start?

Like a performance that you are in? 

 (in my case it is a ballet performance.)

And your stomach is filled, I mean FILLED with a billion,

tiny, fluttering butterflies?

You hold your stomach as tight as you can,

in hopes that you will

minimize their fluttering space. Wishing that their 

tiny wings would stop batting

at the lining of your stomach. You think that perhaps you

forgot to eat, so you hastily grab a quick protein bar and scarf it down.

But- the feeling never goes away? 

All you can do, is keep your mind from going on the fritz
at the growing number of fluttering wings
inside your tummy

and wait in the darkness of the stage wings.

Every second that ticks by, feels like an eternity! And the only

thing that can stop this endless eternity of 

waiting and butterflies is the starting of the music and the drawing
back of the curtains.

Neither of which are happening, and you think, 

quite possibly, that you will go insane

before they do...