I loved you from afar for so long.
I first saw you on stage at The Nutcracker, and immediately I wanted to be in your arms. I was so young then, a child — far too young for this kind of love — and you were already older than I realized, but I had no thought to our age difference. You had the ability to sweep me off of my feet and carry me away from all my troubles, and that’s all I cared about.
But you knew I was too young. You were kind to me, but made no demands, and when I left you to pursue other pastimes, you let me go.
I was 16 when I thought I was ready to pursue you. I was barely a woman, limber and energetic, but I knew that was the kind of girl you liked. So I went for it.
That was before I found out how cruel you could be.
First it was my weight. If I was serious about you, I’d have to lose the weight, you said. And then, when I didn’t do what you asked, you hurt me.
The punishment started with little things. A sprained ankle here and there. I wasn’t too bright, you see. I didn’t know exactly what you wanted me to do. But the day you pushed me down in front of my entire jazz class and dislocated my knee, I started to get the message.
After that incident, you and I parted ways for a while. I healed, but not completely. We met again that year after college, when we both worked at Busch Gardens. I was more mature, a little more savvy, but I couldn’t help but fall back in love with you. We danced the tarantella every day. When we were together, I felt exhilarated. Beautiful. Graceful.
But I still wasn’t good enough for you. I saw you with those other girls, those younger girls, those prettier girls. You had plenty of pas de deux to dance with them, and I got jealous.
We had fought that morning, you and I. During our warm-ups, you threatened to hurt me again. I ignored you. I didn’t think you would possibly do it again.
But you did.
It was the last show of the day. I was exhausted and sweating under that hot sun, and we danced one last tarantella. I made a turn, and you pushed my knee out of place. The same knee that you dislocated before. I collapsed, screaming, on the stage. And suddenly, you were nowhere to be found.
A few days later, at a follow-up visit with my doctor, he told me that the muscles around my knee, because of the repeated injury, were intrinsically weak. I went through physical therapy to get back to baseline, but I would have to continue to maintain my leg muscles for the rest of my life if I wanted to not dislocate my knee a third time.
That’s when I knew you had broken me in a way nobody could fix.
That’s when I realized you and I were never really a good fit.
But you, Dance (Terpsichore, Nataraja, Cernunnos, or whatever you wish to be called), you are a bigger dream than I could ever hope to catch. I still love you…I always will. But I will love you from afar, watching you leap and promenade with my dancer friends, the ones who are strong enough to stay with you.
I know you still love me, too, in your way. I see you in the eyes of my waltz partner. I hear your heartbeat in the rhythm of the songs I sing. But I stay on the safe side of your love now, because I am afraid of what you might do to me if I wander too close to your brilliance.
This week, my Indie Ink challenge came from FlamingNyx, who wrote:
Write an uncensored letter to the one person that broke you in ways no-one would ever be able to fix.
I hope FlamingNyx can forgive me for taking a little bit of artistic license, since Dance is not technically one person. Everything else about the story is true, however.
You can read Leah’s response to my challenge here (it’ll be up by the end of the week).