Just Dance

The strength I needed to lift my whole body off of the ground again felt unreachable, but I was doing it for her. Hair hung past her angel-wing shoulder blades, her eyes were so propelling I saw answers to their questions. I couldn’t believe she was my friend. She was beautiful. And she was killing herself. The simple lines she drew down her wrists with a razor refused to do the job, so the end of her life scooted closer with the drugs she consumed and the tally of calories she etched on her hands. Anorexic. Bulimic. Addicted. I was going to save her life the only way I knew how. We would chase my passion in search of hers. We would dance.
It wasn’t difficult convincing her to pull out her slippers and become the ballerina she’d dreamed of as a child. I simply told her I wanted company in the gym for rehearsal, and she never knew that as I pushed her body to form my similar diamond of plié, I pushed a search for a passion into her mind. I made the girl who hated Twinkies, twinkle with the thought of a new day. Dancing meant something new for her to do.
We started simple. I taught her to point her toes through the pain she was convinced her boyfriend was putting her through. We stepped up to a passé, which not only found the center of her body, but also centered the irregularity that her past eating patterns had instilled on her cycle. We walked on the balls of out feet and learned the beauty of grace. We forced the heals of our tap shoes into the ground and reveled in the release of controlled aggression. And when her suicidal thoughts slowly eased out and thoughts of doing something productive with her life slid in, I was excited to help her focus on a new goal. She wanted to be on the dance team. We would do it, one muscle at a time.
Simple times in the gym turned into intense workout sessions, searching to solve her internal dilemma. We worked her axels, Russians, calypsos, leaps. What she wanted, I also had to push for, racking my mind for moves time had lost. The girl who didn’t even want life before now wanted a leap that was higher and straighter then even my legs knew. I now had to find my own time to perfect the moves she craved.
Leap after leap, the strength I needed to get my whole body off the ground again felt unreachable, but I was doing it for her. My legs straightened, and in the frozen instant I defied gravity, I realized how much the dance sessions had defied for her. She no longer strained to be a pound lighter, but an inch closer to the ground in her splits. She no longer wanted to get high in her backyard, but wanted to get high enough to soar across the dance floor. She had not only gotten her life but had discovered a new way to live it.
The day of auditions her hands shook like before, but for once I knew they weren’t itching to mutilate. They were itching to gyrate. She entered the room and that was the last I saw of the girl I knew. When she walked out her external beauty was finally met with the internal beauty of confidence.

Congratulations!
We are proud to announce that you have been accepted as a new member to our team.

She was no longer struggling with herself, because she had been given what she needed. She was given a chance. I was lucky all she needed was someone who knew how to dance.