So, I quit ballet last year. Ballet was such a huge part of my life that quitting wasn’t an easy decision. Quitting ballet was like saying goodbye to a part of me. Ballet became an identity for me, and without it, I was, and in some ways still am, incredibly lost. I found a way to translate the ever-consuming feelings in my mind was to write my feelings through poetry. I had a very rough time last year, and my feelings towards ballet had been soured. There is a part of me that wishes I didn’t have to leave ballet the way I did-so angry, bitter, and totally screwed over. But another part of me understands that the total destruction of my view and feelings towards ballet was necessary to get me to leave. Without the mental torture I went through, I would never had found the strength to move on. I can now differentiate my love for ballet and my hate for the ballet world. It is not ballet I hate, it is the world that has been formed around it.
So here it is, my mind and heart’s inner meanderings. I am by no means a poet, but I find the process of writing poetry to be quite soothing.
Ballet
A hobby
An activity
Fun
Happy
Passionate
A dream
A life
A goal
A need
A desire
An obsession
Consuming
Overwhelming
A disorder
A lifeline
Stressful
Painful
Insecure
An upheaval
A decision
Done.
Dear Ballet World,
Do you care?
Do you care that you tortured me?
Took my heart and crushed it for all to see.
Dangled my dream in front of my face
Only to snatch it and take it away
To glow as the others walked in front
Of the students who worked long and hard enough
To smile and act as all is okay
As you made my year slowly decay
To say you’re sorry as if I’d actually believe
To tell me one thing and then watch me bleed
I wasn’t good enough.
I wasn’t thin enough.
You couldn’t see my bones.
You couldn’t see my spine.
You couldn’t see a gap between my thighs.
I starved.
I barfed.
I did everything,
To try to make you like me.
But it didn’t work.
But that’s this world
A life based on superficiality
A world based on beauty
And nothing in between
Where your self worth is in another’s hands
Where one misstep could ruin your chance
Where one man holds your life
And makes his living through a web of lies
So, Ballet?
Is it pretty?
Maybe.
But not to me.
Not anymore.
Now I have clarity.
Now I have closure.
