old crow

stop.

~k.

another year older

you knew me, some
time forever ago,
with black hair and a
bleeding heart; you
loved me then
for the colors i shared,
the deep reds and blues
I so artfully let
wash over me, let settle.
you knew me when
i didn't want to know
myself, when
i didn't want to know
my layers, too stubborn
to let the walls be broken.
but you broke them.
and i hated you for it,
i still kind of hate you for it.
i wanted that shell, that
protection against people
just
like
you. but
too late, now...
i found someone like you,
just like the song says.
and i don't care that
i've been broken or
infiltrated or
even smashed to bits,
because it's the kind of love
you couldn't give.
so i'll take my pearls and
my weathered leather
jacket and be on
my way, again, through
my swinging doors, not
yours,
and smile to the sunset
that all this
was worth it.

~k.

the bolt

the bus yesterday was crowded, full to the brim. and it was a monday... i guess no one wanted to pay the two grand for a ticket to see madonna at MSG. i was happy to leave, like most of the people on the bus, to go home to my own bed and my own cat and my man; not to say that i was happy to leave my friends, the promise of free studio space, or the fact that anywhere i wanted to go i could walk or take the metro.

movement is a funny thing. it's the only thing in my life i know i'm really, solidly good at. and i have been in such a constant state of motion since graduating from high school, shit, since before that... that i am in no means saying this is not a nice, slow transition into a different, welcomed life.

new york city for a weekend - nicely does it. i should have moved there fresh out of college. i would have had the energy and will to do everything and anything that i heaped on my plate. but at 27, 28... i just couldn't hack it. the movement was killing me, and so i am therefore happy i am out.

things will pick up to a pace i enjoy and can handle in my old age eventually. for right now, the bus back into the city will do.

~k.

asheville

really?
i mean, really?

the irony is killing me.

~k.

carve it out

and in two months, the world was flipped and things are different, now.
things are different in a good and solid way, taking quite a few steps back to get to exactly the position i was in a little while ago but with more experience and a longer resume.
the world is so ironic. to go forward alot of times, we must move back and allow ourselves to be... pummeled.
beaten.
and become a child again.
it works this way in ballet, as well, like cleaning the dust out of a clock so that the gears move swift and slippery against one another, so that it can tell time again. breaks for the bones and joints in ballet is much the same, although i can say a clocks muscles rarely weaken in the absence of movement.
but then again, a clocks muscles are made of metals that are solid and unfibrous.
it makes sense for it not to be weakened.
but the clock will continue it's time telling, as i will continue my dancing, and my growing, and shaping a future i never even knew existed but love more and more every day.
what an interesting life i lead.

~k.

and now i hate flowers

when i was sixteen, i was cast as the lilac fairy in my ballet school's production of the sleeping beauty. the only other role that was more important was the actual sleeping beauty, so all in all i had done pretty well for myself, and considering that at sixteen and still a virgin it was basically the most epic thing that had happened to me thus far.
i lived, breathed, and slept the fucking lilac fairy for five months. i watched videos of famous ballerinas who had danced the role. i meticulously planned my stage makeup specifically for the role, spending hours in the bathroom every night after getting home from class and rehearsal (even though i was kind of failing my math class but, priorities, priorities, right?). i practiced my bows in my bedroom mirror, envisioning the bob carr theatre in downtown orlando equivalent to that of the met, people graciously throwing long-stemmed roses onto the stage while screaming BRAVO, BRAVO and ENCORE for my thirteen curtain calls.
i was the lilac fucking fairy.
so it was at this show, this one time where i knew the planets had aligned and i had withstood bleeding toes and tendinitis and chronic hip problems... this one time i had the storybook all to myself, in the lights and the fog and the glitter and the tutus, all to me. this was me, this was my story of perseverance and dedication and grit. me, drowned in the bright lights that soaked into my eyes and lifted me out of my skin. this. was. me.
and at intermission, my father came backstage with flowers and little gifts and cards and told me that his back was hurting and my little brother was getting fussy and they were going to leave because i had already danced half of the show and that was about it, right?
i smiled.
i hugged him.
i watched him walk out the backstage door.
and i ran to my dressing room, threw myself on the couch, and wept.
i was so shocked, so unbelievably shocked that they weren't staying til the end. that they wouldn't just stick around and see me through. i was shocked and confused and hurt...
but i was mostly just sad.

you can't make people stick around until the end of the show, and moreover, who would want that? all the flowers in the world would never make up for the lack of interest in my passion... and so i had to let it go and concede that some things in this life are not worth that kind of pain. where you have to make people love you and the life you love. i wouldn't want to hold people against their free will just so i feel better, more secure about their love for me. someone else will come along and feel that for me free of charge, just because they do.

which is exactly what happened. thank you to the one who has stayed til the end, with a bottle of perfume in his hand, and genuine excitement in his heart for my dedication and perseverance. i love you for so many things, but this being one of the most dear.

we. always.

~k.

ocean's exhibit

i went to sea world this one time and was in this clear tunnel, see through to sharks swimming (flying, whichever one) overhead and all i could look at was the guy's shirt in front of me, me sitting there pretty in my mother's arms, legs wrapped around her waist.
all i wanted to do was touch it. it was white and mesh and it looked stretchy like crabtraps under the water, i wanted to put my tiny fingertips in between the mesh and pull, pull til there was no space between me and the space between his skin and the shirt, til wewerethisclose and my hand was beyond my ear, and see what it did - see if the shirt would snap from my hands or collapse under the water and the sharks and the imagination of it all...
but my mom slapped my hand away right before it made it there, and i was just a foolish four-year old, in pigtails, thinking the pattern on his skin was the coolest corner of the room i had seen thus far. and in the back of my head, golden curls and all, i knew, i KNEW i wouldn't have known what to do with that fishnet had i the chance to touch it.
application, application.

~k.