day 6: not/room enough

My movement is so weird that I keep it indoors.
I like to think it has merit because of how long music has been under my skin.

I was moved from gymnastics to violin as a child
because I was not growing the muscle I needed

My knowledge of classical and contemporary dance comes from competitive reality TV
so I’m stuck figuring out the violin fingerings to guitar solos on an imaginary neck

but I’m not able to articulate my body into the shapes I see with each phrase I listen to on repeat

He said “think about your relationship to the ground, to the stage”
but what if my relationship to the ground

is that I want to leave it?

I spent so much of my young life being closer to it than kids my age and
now I have no strength to jump without immediate humiliation

I can dance but god how I’ve always wanted to also dance
with sinew and grace at my beckoning
and a turnout to break for and lines that spell ENVY
but I am stuck with the floor,
on the floor,
to the floor.

My core could help me re-learn Basic but will never let me do a full sit-up
I have rhythm but no clarity,
8-counts take no strength,
and I once sprained my toes trying to do a simple pencil turn in class.
I am a clumsy, lazy, shambling mess of a human body
and some dreams are just dreams, y’know?
They’re meant to be forgotten as soon as you wake up, get out of bed, and walk through a doorway.

But,

Lavender burns over the oven,

or the waters are rising,

or whatever,

and here I am, in the minute spaces between my furniture and my walls:

stretching limbs muscle-
                                         by-
                                                muscle-
                                                              by-
                                                                     bone-
                                                                                by-
                                                                                      bone

                                                        to the last extremity, 

pretending my leg points higher and straighter than it actually does,

spotting                               perfect                                     turns--

I have a w i  n   g     s             p                     a                             n--

in these notes, I have left the ground looking better than when I could touch it;

in these windows, I am bigger than my body is.