To Not Be Still

(Photo by Stephen Duncan)

My absolute passion is performing. Being on stage. Especially through dance. It was never a question to me whether it would be something I would pursue or not. I always just knew. I had this inherent instinct that it is what I need to do, and I can’t imagine the damage it would do to my soul if I ever dropped that dream. It is the one thing I can do in this world that makes me feel untouchable. It makes me feel right. Not moving my body feels restless and wrong. It sets me on fire to feel the blood coursing through my limbs as I jump, fall, suspend, melt, dive, burst! The near absence of performing in my life during this pandemic/quarantine time has made me painfully aware of how much I desperately need it. I feel like I am in a desert. Every time I get to dance again, it is like someone has squeezed a rag of water onto my parched tongue.

I wrote this poem about the desperate need to move and how good it felt to take up space: To not be still, To move, To take up space, To fill the air, To breathe in form, And exhale life, A surge of vitality, How delicious it feels to be alive. To feel a strong core running up my body. The muscles in my abdomen, The power in my legs, The fire in my blood, The grace in my arms, The energy in my toes, The abandonment in my face, The free flow of my hair, The kiss of my fingertips on the air. The itch to use my body, To soar through space, To fall to the ground, To burst into shapes, To float in elegance, To crumble inward.

To stay still

Would be a treacherous crime,

A shameful dishonor,

A poison to my soul.

A fish in a dessert,

I would be,

Without dance.

Dear body,

Be lasting.

Dear heart,

Stay beating.

Dear world,

Keep spinning.

So that I can have more time,

To dance. For I need to move As much as I need to breathe.

#dance #dancer #poem #poetry #performer #artist