Dancers Lament

By Ava Santilli

I’ve spent my whole life dancing. I do spins and twists and twirls. I watch as others watch me. I can tell when they look. I know they know when I mess up, when my foot bends just slightly farther than meant to, when my brow contorting back in pain. I know nobody is looking at my face, and yet I cake on the makeup. All they are watching is my body and they want to see how far it can go. The way it’ll bend, snap, stretch. I see other people doing what takes me years to master so effortlessly. It makes me want to bend, snap, and stretch them. But it’ll always be me, the one, feeling all the pain, because I wasn’t born to be a dancer.

Dancing is a choice. The light steps, the pointed feet, the screams of delight when they see how my back bends impossibly far back like its breaking (it is). I’m told if I like to complain this much, I should quit, and I laugh. My head hurts, it always does. My body hurts, it always does. Sometimes it hurts most seeing those others, the new ones. They never make faces of pain, they never stretch and get the same results, they’re better than me. It is a waste, dedicating my life to something I’m only pretending to be. All of it, a waste. I’m a wasted dancer, I’m wasted potential. When I was smaller, I wasn’t even potential—I was a liar. I wasn’t cut out for the stage, why do people insist I was? Any nine-year-old should be able to do a butterfly sit or lift their leg above their elbow. I refused to dance until I grew up. Everyone is a dancer when you’re older, you must join.

I now feel as though I should’ve left while I had the chance. People warned me that it wouldn’t be easy. But they said it would be a waste for me to not pursue, this is a once-in-alifetime opportunity everyone gets. The holy grail, the end goal, the highest achievement of mankind. I’m honored to be a dancer; to be presented as a dancer, to represent dancers.

I’ve only danced in one recital, when I was twelve. It was a winter recital, all of us in the smallest leotards and imaginable freezing. Dancing was supposed to warm us up anyways. We danced a small routine. It was the easiest routine of my life. I regret it. Someone was watching that night, a big someone. Now I sit, in a prestigious prison. Everyone wants to go until they get there, then we can’t leave. Everytime I want to quit, I’m offered another recital that never happens. I practice, I practice like hell. This is hell, this entire process. It’s pitiful, a crowd watching as I’m burned over and over. All they do is clap, as I bow. My feet bleeding, getting ready to pass out, being unable to see any of their looks of admiration. The view from the top, is worse than the one below. Everything is blurry, I can’t even see my awards, I can just feel my feet. My feet are bleeding, I should clean that later. And later, I’ll dance again.

And so, today, I ask for no pity, no more. I ask that I have the privilege I always have been offered but never given—my final dance, the one that’s the most painful. But afterwards, it’s all over, and you won’t have to dance anymore. My feet stopped bleeding. It’s time to rest. The stage lights are off. It’s time to rest. My hair is down. It’s time to rest. The audience isn’t watching. It’s time to rest. I take off my shoes and I rest.

Baby Doll’s Tea Party

For All Eyes

Shania Gill did the birds fly over me, or did they fly under the clouds? either way, i still saw the beauty in such life itself.

i’m sure, the clouds saw it too although i stand beneath the clouds, i still see what the clouds see. although they are above me, they are just as real, and as deep, as i am. either way, we both saw life and felt life itself.

Artwork by Natalie Dechiara

Impossible, right?

By Gianna Hall

Every night I swear I see her. My mom. She is on the other side of my window. One thing you should know though... My mom passed when I was fifteen.

I’m thirty-four now, nineteen years and I still miss her deeply. I never saw a body. I don’t know what happened. All I know is one day my father told me she was gone. He held me in his arms that night, we cried and since then, he has not uttered a word about her.

I accepted it and did my best to move on, but it felt like she was watching me, wherever I went.

I felt her presence in my room, at work, walking home, wherever I was, she was too.

On the night of my thirty-fifth birthday, I saw her again. My mom’s beautiful figure stood outside my window, her long wavy hair blowing in the wind, and her hand perched up on her hip.

I dart up, ran to the window, opened it and she was gone.

I must be seeing things, I tell myself. As I lift the blanket to get into my bed again, it is dark, I barely see her, but my mom is laying there. I fell to the ground in fear and cried out, “Why does my head do this to me?” She took my hand, and I pull away asking “How are you here? What is going on?”

She replies, “I’m here to tell you the truth.”

Just as you are confused now, so was I, “What truth?” I asked.

She told me my grandmother died at thirty five and my father was to blame.

He killed my grandmother. He killed my mother, and You are next,” she spoke with fear in here voice.

He’s coming tonight.

Seaplane

Emotions Within Artwork by Allison Spiroff

Butterflies