As i ponder ballet
By: Ella Frauenhofer
I like the idea of having a body to express myself with, but i dont like that i didnt get to choose which one. To be taught ballet by a 7 year old, who does a full outfit change into a lime green bejeweled tutu ensemble prior to “lessons,” conveying full commitment, is a humbling experience. It also makes you guilty 3 hours later for the majority of boneheaded adults that deem young people incapable and naive. The smartest person i’ve ever known is in fact 7 years old. She admires facts and rattles off rules as she’ll probably grow up breaking them. She thinks tv mediocre at best and is so painfully soft and fair, it shocks you. I like the idea of being a dancer but hate the fact of actually being one. I fancy movement but my fickle interests have me falling in love with brushing goo onto rectangles. I dont want to show my body anymore. I want imagery from things i can only explain in tubes and cans. I want the therapy of painting. The movement... well, it’s saved my life. And it’s a reason I can explain to my therapist what’s going on. I’ve been holding my breath and moving slow until it keeps me up at 4am in a bout of mania, convinced im haunted by ghosts and someone’s got to get me to a hospital because this heart attack won’t do. Goo kept me up and answered my calls when i was too ashamed to even call my own mother. I dipped my feet in black and walked around my entire apartment, eyes glowing. I made a mess which i cleaned up, neat and tidy. When i write, birds fly in v’s and the lights dim. When i write a lot, im ____ or im madly in love. When i began typing, i thought this’d be something you could call lovely, but now it’s something nonsensical that’s finally surfaced after weeks of quarantine and weeks of somehow doing actually pretty well (Why oh why do some of us sip solitude like a third drink). This something had burst as I watched tofu crisp while explaining, yet again, that yeah i just think it’s pretty fucked up to eat a sentient being that’s all, like im reciting the weather. But as i write i realize this too is a portal to something with shadows. And as i fall out of love with my paintings, i write on top of them to shield them from the honest truth: i am falling out of love. But only for a short while. I stick needles in denim and possessions. The religion beneath my second hand purchases is fueled by addictions to notes from past lovers and train tickets with no value other than the speck of memory, my feet up on the sill, a little fear but totally free. I figure it out through my mom’s national geographics and nauseating consumerism. Figure it out. I sew to make up for it, to tell everyone to wear everything. show it all, a cuff or a link, and yes, this is about sex. That’s the point that skin is meant for comfort or sex, and it’s fucking fine, Debra. As i fall out of love with posture and curvature, i fall in love with ink and bathe in pigments. I forget about words and remember my tiptoes as i reach for shredded clothing to wrap around my waist. I throw scraps at my mirror and cant stand money, money that i conscientiously spent on things i tore up and proudly, poorly sewed back together. I dream of pieces ill never make and make pieces i never met and ill hate everything about the aesthetic world yet dissolve in it. Such is my relationship with candy. As i ponder ballet, i wonder if i’ve passed this down to a 7 year old.