What it is to be a dancer, I am only just learning.
The fire has gone out. The man I sleep with sleeps in our bed. I am not tired. I am too busy thinking of all the ways I think sideways. I am a ballerina dressed in dark jeans and a sweatshirt but beneath these clothes lives a lythe body of muscle that can move in ways that are beautiful. Today I moved it, my soul moved it, it carried my soul. We moved as one, I moved in ways that were beautiful.
It came because I emptied myself. I let the rest go and saw all the same markers I had built for myself in a week’s time. The look over the right shoulder to suggest love but is just a turn of the cheek. The lack of a hand as it moves from underneath to above and a crash of the music to pull myself together. Then a little step under myself to lift my leg as I rest on his arm. We spin but all I think is my right hand pushing against his, a link between our two bodies. He makes space in front of me. I can’t help but dive forward. There is freedom in the fall. I am long. I am free. I am dancer. We return. I move through and feel my ribs collapse even as my back flexes. I feel my right foot and switch into him again. Swing up, swing back, swing down. Foot, hand, together again my legs. Down. Pitta bitta bourre left to fall forward. Plie my left side a pole of iron, spinning spinning in his hands. CRASH! My leg extends. Palms up. I see you. Do you see me? Down again soft, tender pitta bitta pop. Toe draws its line up open out pole pole pole. Sigh to extend up and back. Fear of forward. What a ride. Leg up together - RUN! Up into the down back and crash into line to jump, fly, toss, explode into CRASH! Hoppity arabesque up swing back and up pique swirl and ha! C’est fini.
What it means to be symbol. Empty. Drop down and into my body. Transform to sound only, to feeling only. It cannot live in words, but in the body for it to be true. To be true. To be dancer.
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