She dances,
Alone.
In such grace and poise
Positioned in between the tallest buildings
And she poses
For the camera
The bright flashes

Or on stage
In the spotlight
Twirling and twisting
Not a hair out of place
Not a step out of line
Not a breath unplanned

Trained to be accurate
Self destructing, but so well collected
The most beautiful dancer the world has ever seen.

I woke up one day
The end of my bed,
A jewelry box
Pink as the ribbon they used to represent her;
I traced over her disappearing fingertips
The rim of the box clicked open,
It clicked to life
The music tickling my ears;
A plastic ballerina stands as a guardian
Hands in the air
Waiting for someone to join her,
Twirling around like my eyes that follow her,
To see we are all alone

She was not interested in what was obvious
Her ego required nuance and sophistication
A life devoted to a cause will die with it
For what is achievement without a fragile peace?

Though the tide comes and goes, what lingers,
glistening post cards, confounding swimmer and
marine life alike, becomes the current and not
where the moon may ****** itself in the night

Applause in the middle of her dance of love
will not lift her spirits; to them, she has made
love to them and to her she has only found herself
for a brief moment while they became the ocean

She could never believe life was like that; art only
interested the patrons in this way, but her dancing
was not about what they would imagine was
perfect in her heart; only that it was not; it was not

The release of birds from the hands of those who
cried over their captivity was not of liberation, but
instead of shoes that required no hand or mind to
place them where nature intended them to be

She was unable to fixate upon comfort without pause
Life was anger and sadness that a smile knew too well
It was in her moment of triumph that tragedy met her eyes
And as her heart died she became the fantasy they paid for

"It takes guts to be kind and gentle."

~Theres a difference between being kind and acting as a doormat.

Being a doormat literally welcomes people to walk over you.~

Evolve us
Wind us up
Like a little toys
Or a music box
With a petite little ballerina
Eternally twirling
With her arms never tiring

Evolve us
The human race whispers.

The ballerina's pirouette:
   This is the little triolet.
Within a faëry scene and set
The ballerinas pirouette
To a limpid midnight minuet
   In Thumbelina-esque ballet.
The ballerina's pirouette:
   This is the little triolet.

When I was little my mother put me in several ballet classes in hopes to bring some grace to my stumbling gait.

I grew up walking on eggshells, wobbling to keep my balance on a tightrope that never really ended.

 My instructor pinched my thighs and shook her bony finger at me every tuesday and thursday for three and a half years.

4 am, I'm still tiptoeing around the creaks in the stairs as if anyone would notice an empty bed.

 This Christmas I came across the broken reminents of the ballerina ornaments my younger sister used to play with.

I never did master the delicate posture I was expected to adopt. My feet fell a bit too heavy, I suppose, on the ice tonight.

I'm not cold anymore, just exhausted from attempting to balance the wrong things for too long.

My life is flashing before my eyes, but all I see is a younger version of myself practicing Grand Battements on thin ice while everyone slept.