S.O.S.

The dancers have commandeered the light.

I don't see any justification in dancing for people who hate us, for teachers who have a disgusted attitude towards us because we have been labelled "Level 2 technique" which they themselves put on us. It's like they chose who they wanted to be worthy. Level 3 is on their way to NYC, Level 1 is potential-striken, and Level 2...purgatory. We're not good enough to be allowed to move on, but too good to go home. I used to be hell bent on convincing them that I was something special, but I stull wanted to do it my way and not be made into something my predecesors just wanted to see pirouette. So I got blacklisted, yet respected, maybe even feared in some cases. Not exactly what I was going for, but I took it over being someone's silent muse.

They don't like Michelle because she has a big butt. They don't like Emily because she has big boobs. They don't like Zig because she has a big heart and they don't like me because I have a big mouth. Who at the beginning of ballet time decided teachers got to say what size was acceptable? I know plenty of things that are big AND wonderful: Texas, elephants, Eddie VanHalan's hair circa 1985, the Civil Rights movement, Melana's cankles, the Rocky Mountains, the Sistine Chapel, and Andre's ears. Big is not always bad. Maybe Eddie's hair was a poor example.

The dance studio was bleak and attic-like when we walked in this morning. Our darling instructor had already started class with but 3 students out of obvious spite that he was assigned to teach the Level 2's today. Two of us have doctor's notes urging us not to dance, but we are here anyways. Michelle whispers about a wish that she could just melt into the floor. I wish I could give that to her.

Katie's drum beat is perfect for the next scene. It puts soundtrack to the evil persona Nancy has all too pleasantly taken on: An undercutting lioness, cruel from jealousy that she is not heir to a throne and hell bent on the redemption of her shortcomings. She yelled at Michelle for blowing her nose in between exercises, making her demonstrate the correction alone. Then she covers it up with false sweetness that makes me sick- asking Michelle if she is okay. if she was truly concerned that a runny nose might jeopardize Meesh's health. Then Nancy goes after me. She draws the class's attention to me, who can't dance today. I am clearly miserable to not be twirling and leaping with my peers, still she upbraids me for attitude I have not even given her yet. When I remind her of my note and injury excuse presented the first day of classes (a time she when she also publically embarrassed me), she at first pretends she knows nothing of my injury and asks sweetly if I am not feeling well or something. She makes me say 'hernia' and point out where it is. My humiliation angers me but my irises only drain their colors. "I was only asking, honey." I hate sugar names dripping with disdain. My mother gave me a name. I sass back, "And I was just telling you." My delivered attitude earns me evil eyes but no more words. I wish I was brave enough to do something more; like make a scene and walk out. Or describe how I've been throwing up from the pain I'm in and the extra meds I've been swallowing. But I don't. I just write. And I take out my bun to release my dance-defiant hairstyle.

The room is dark and dreary, not ominously but mundanely. I will not raise my eyes from this page, whether out of shame or embarrassment I know not. Suddenly a burst of light! It robs me of my seclusion and I look up to see 3 dancers ripping open the corded curtains from the wall-length windows with neither permission nor approval. Our instructor goes on giving the next combination, not wanting to acknowledge the disobedience of his authority. But I see the panic on his face. The dancers are ripping those cords- there are 10 curtains total- and the room becomes alive with light. I smile at the rebellion and immediately begin to scribble these very words. I was meant to notice this small but bold act of resiliency. I was meant to record the movements of spirits that juse refuse to die.



...Ricky.
"Love Story" by: Taylor Swift.

Sandlot Scenes

Today I found out an old friend is very sick. He was probably one of my first actual friends since the first 6 years of my life I met other children, but only played closely with my own cousins. There was Erika; the basis of our friendship really being that she lived across the street, that my little brother used to try to pick her up in his Hot Wheels Corvette, and of course, that her name was Erica too. Fourth letter of choice. She was my first friend, and then there was Matt. First grade, Mrs. Adams' class. I was in a new school with not so new clothes and Matthew was the one I connected with. The laminated name tag on his desk has to say 'Matthew,' but even our teacher called him, 'Matt.' We had a kickball league. Everyday our class hoarded the gravel field at the far end of the playground. Matt and I were captains- I think half because we could kick the ball the farthest and half because we demanded the most attention. We mostly just scrimmaged against ourselves, but on the occasion that the lunch aids made us allow the other children to play, we charged the game as "Adams' vs. all!" and took it as a battle to be victoried, a title to uphold. We always won those games, or at least that's how I choose to remember it.

Matt is sick now. My mother called me on a 5 from rehearsal tonight and aside from asking about show tickets and my health, she told me my hometown was on a hushed buzz. Testicular cancer they say, with mentions of chemo and frozen sperm, and buzz words of 'treatment' and 'ruined.' They say he's sick. Sick; like he could take some Dimetapp or Advil and run right back out on that gravel diamond. I haven't spoken to Matt in probably a year. The last time we spoke we were both just trying to get through the complicated surprises growing up had rolled our way. We were hopeful. And what of now? Now that my second friend/first crush/fellow coming-of-age hopeful might die? I refuse to speak any words of inevitability. But what of now when we have left the playground yet kept running to towards the bases we always wanted to touch? How do you keep going when you are sick? When your cells are dying and your body is struggling? What words have I for that?? I fear there are none. Some say you learn everything you need to know when you are small. Others say God blesses you with the skills you need to survive. If these are so, then I know only one thing to do: square off to that outfield and kick the ball as far as we possibly can.


...Erica.
anything by Blind Melon.

can a person change the tides?

The middle of the day is the longest part for me. It's when I have "8 for nothing" if I have one at all, and it's when I get sleepy; usually scanning social networking sites until I pass out. Today I should be making sure I'm going to graduate, solidifying casting and choreography, or even folding my laundry. But instead I'm blogging and listening to All Time Low. Typical.

Take a breathe, don't sound so easy? Never had a doubt now I'm going crazy.

There are some phrases that burn right through the thickest clots in my bloodstream. There are certain notes that I think I've lived out before they were even applied to these words. "In a matter of minutes." I like songs about good times, about these epically ordinary roadtrips or nights outside that just lived on forever. "A night like this," or "this night is all we've got." I like that somebody wrote them down so that we could all go back to them whenever we wanted.

This morning I woke up in a very foggy rememberance of what had gone on in the previous hours. My only clues were the soreness in my ribs, the smeared eyeliner, and worry in my eyebrows. I had fallen asleep with The Book and a pen in my left hand, my cell phone under my pillow, and an open water bottle next to me. I was missing a sock and Andre's hoodie was on the floor. Resorting to routine I snapped headphones on my head and pressed play before sitting up at all. I struggled to identify the voice in my ears; I knew this song, this intonation was specific to me. The song was old to my memory and quite uncommonly I could neither grasp a band boy's face nor an outfit I'd worn in this tune's presence. I pushed my legs over the side of the bed, for they needed help this morning, and slid down to put both feet on the ground. And it hit me. Find it in you. I once dropped a box of firework snaps on a sidewalk as a child, and that spitfire sound came back to me now as a thousand images and outfits and songs and glances and moments..and nights...sparked to the front of my brain all at once. "She said let's change our luck."

Sometimes when one is lost it is best to go back to the very beginning. Look around, see how you saw it in the first place, remember why you didn't doubt it back then. And then I find, that the combination of the right song and a little imagination is enough to put 2 and 2 together and get by for at least another 3 and half minutes. "I believe it. Do you?"



...Ricky.
"Six Feet Under the Stars" by: All Time Low

We wine and dine in stormy weather, take our time and we're together

Today I drove to I-495 in the direction of out. Then I realized running backwards is ridiculous and that if I was going to run at all, it might as well be with it.


...Rica.
"Maybe Baby" by: Gabriel the Marine

In The Break Of Saturday

cut.
this morning when i woke
it was from a scream
where our bodies were linked and your sweat,
your sweat was my accessory;
beading around my neck until I could not breathe.
this morning when i woke
i could still feel the thrash
of silver-studded nightmares and mustard-colored fears,
in sweetly lied promises and bent autumn dreams.

(you're so last summer)
tattoos on the wrists of broken hearts
hold the secrets which I can only write.
the gift of the giver
and the bearer of these conditions.
i touch my firework scars and wince in remembrance
of your now jaded freshness and oh this hushed appeal.

this morning when i woke i could still sense the distortion
of pedaled images and hustled hips
as I stared struggling to hold onto
a squinted perception to remember you by.
and you. you spoiled faith one splinter at a time.
you proved the lyrics were forged.

taking back sunday.
this morning when i woke
it was from a song
and the night was still warm and the leads,
the leads were piercing in my truths,
and i realized it had been here all along
in scene-haired promises and sweetly lied chords
that they’ve left in my ear
to keep for this morning
when i woke to put both feet on the ground
and finally shatter; a beautiful D sus to a dying relief.


post.
sometimes I wish it were yesterday
in our spring jackets, wet noses stuck in other people’s businesses.
back then all we worried about was time;
that we wouldn’t have enough of it, that it would go by too fast.
we’ve all got something that won’t go away
i’m just not it.

"If I'd only thought of something charming to say."

I am having orange juice for dinner. It is pretty good. Today I mopped a lot, and got angry a lot, i looked down a lot, and i did a lot of tendus. I do not like mini corns. Fuck mini corns. I think anything with Vitamin C in it makes you feel pretty terrific all over, except if you have the tiniest cut in your mouth. Then it's a bitch. Tonight I learned that the only way to trick a drug dog when smuggling weed across the border is to hide the magic grass under chopped meat, so that when the dog sniffs the area, the officer assumes it just wants the meat. Learning is so important. I talked to cousins today; chatted with BA from Breuggers in Arlington VA, Danny from DuPont HQ in Delaware, and Pat from Washington DC. We re-discovered the music video for Go West's "King of Wishful Thinking" which...you all gotta youtube. It's fuckin brilliant. So is orange juice, mostly when combined with champagne on the beaches of South Jersey. Take me back to Sea Isle City I'm done in these Long Island trenches. It occurs to me you don't know my cousins. And I want to tell you.

I have 17+ cousins, which in our language, has always meant brothers and sisters. We refer to each other by nickname and usually in age order: Matt, Pat, Chard, Ref, BA, Danny, Ica, Bomber, Boobis, Cloudy, BJ, Sarah, AlliCat, Buddy, and Roo. Plus, Jenny Lee, Fatty, and Jackay, and Lauren. Also, Bri, Kay, RyRy, and Stevie. My cousins...are the shit. They take care of me from epic distances. They sense when to call, when to text, and nothing ever drifts away. A few years ago when Danny was in the VA Tech Shootings, no grown ups were called before all the cousins connected first. Brian talked to Danny that day. And when GUB died I laid on Ricky's shoulder in the church, and he just let my fuzzy sweater shed all over his great black suit. Riley knows when to go sit in Michael's lap and when to snuggle with David. So yesterday me and Dave texted cuz we were sad and frustrated and today Bri made me reiterate my life plan to make sure I was set while Dan drooled over Lin Manuel Miranda. They're gonna be best friends.

Learning is good, important. Today Brian said to me, "best way to make things happen is to make things happen." Genius. BA drinks his Vitamin C.



...Ricky.
"Sound of Settling" by: Deathcab for Cutie

.

Please define:

equivocator.
forget.
afterwards.
innocence.
forfeit.
mentality.
contusion.
prayer.


tell me a story.