temerate
“We came whirling out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust...
The stars made a circle, and in the middle, we dance”
All the Ways I Pray:
Slide the wooden window wide to hear the birds better. The base is swollen, and it sticks. I perch on the white stool and let the breeze tease my hair. My roots are oily. My skin is salty. Clara is out of avocado and coconut oil and asked me what I needed from Costco. Seed butter, I said. She sits on the floor with bare feet, and I stand to stretch my psoas. We got off the Zoom call, and I biked to a dance class and cried tiny petaled tears onto the handlebars. The swallows swooped lower and lower for bugs, feeding hour. They don’t make a sound; their taste is silent, not like the morning birds with long throats and a song like the nightingale. I never cry in the morning. Sorrow is reserved for the evenings. I don’t let myself recline for fear I’ll never get up. He did not choose me. He did, and then he didn’t. I booked dance classes after dinner to swirl and fling my suffering at the walls. Two girls showed up in ballet shoes. Nine of us had bare feet. The teacher put her hands on my shins and told me to kick through my entire leg, not just the foot. Feeling someone reduce their love for you until it is no longer there is perhaps one of the worst feelings in the entire world. Dissolution. I kick and kick and kick until the teacher is pleased and claps her hands. Aha! You got it! Clara sent me almond butter when I was in Barcelona, but the parcel got stuck in Madrid. It never arrived. I dribble Amlou on flatbread and slice up strawberries to layer on top. I can’t eat; Heartbreak Diet, my mother used to say. I am not broken; I am becoming. Our shirts are stuck to our chests and bellies when the dance class is over. Each woman smiles at me when we make eye contact. I say au revoir over and over when it is time to go. Three times. It is not for the dancers; it is for him. I step outside into the dark. The birds are gone, tucked in their nests. My bike ride home muggy and cool. The only thing thrusting me forward is the reckless burst of energy I grab onto in moments of disquiet! I am ill-tempered, uneven, full of zeal, and so many questions! Who will I be when the music stops? In the pause at the studio, we all stop moving and bend over. Hunchbacked with one heel down and the other held up away from the earth. One foot anchored and the other suspended. In the absence of the lightheartedness I crave to feel connected, I pray. And it looks like this.
Photo source.
