Dance

More of a free-associative deposition on a tumultuous earthly love.

When we dance, there is no choreography. Ours is something far more tribal and chaotic. We spar and laugh. Smiles on the faces while cutting with verbal daggers. In our dance, our hands and bodies never come in contact with one another. For that would produce a far too volatile reaction. The organic compounds of which we are made already reach their vapor pressure as we glide and stomp and writhe around one another. How often have each said “Stop” to one another? How often have our eyes met--yours filled with fury of Shiva and mine with remorse of a tattered terrestrial--as the molecules of love and hate and passion and angst and always intoxication escape our respective bodies and try to intermingle one to another in the pressurized air that exists between us? You have said that this can be the most frightening thing of all"losing oneself in others. I agree. But smile again and sharpen your blade because have more dancing to do. The dancing never stops, unless the music stops. At which point, we stop. We stop dancing. There must always be music therefore. But how do we get our separate tunes to come together as one mellifluous libretto of unity? Will they ever? Can they ever? Or will this be another failed spiritual experiment that finds our two selves far too unique and antecedent towards each other to ever possibly become one graceful interpolation of holy color and holy sound and holy love? Maybe what the great Austrian Master wrote was indeed true--that every instance of supreme spiritual entanglement is far too great for mere mortals to perceive. That we in fact “would be consumed in that overwhelming existence” of that which we have created through our devil-may-care dance. Must we first both be destroyed utterly before we can ever possibly coexist? Benzene, will you soon burst into a primordial fire leaving only ashes and dust behind? And I, Acetone, will scour myself so relentlessly until I manage to wipe the living out of me entirely. Then and only then only the molecules of our former selves shall permeate the vapid air where our dancing once filled. There is hope, however. Slowly the remnants of us each will be able start their own dance. And maybe then physical contact would be permissible since the fire and there cleansing had already brought our mere earthly demises. There would be no more smiles and no more looks, of course. But there would be music. There would be that harmonious blend of our two selves as we became one. For on this earth we are not our full selves. We are only trapped chemicals. Evidenced by the fact that we both thrive in the dog days of the burning solstice. That is not where we are at our best. Not until we have reached that ultimate volatility and self-destruction will we ever be what we were meant to be--the air. You the Gemini. Me the Aquarius. We belong in the crisp autumn, in the equinox. Only then our unnatural inclination toward two separate volatile siren songs will be muted and brought into harmony in the cool, wet, airy nights under a harvest moon. And we will use our blades for good this time to harvest that which our souls have planted. And there will be a great bounty of love. And we shall create one sound and one note together. And what, pray tell, will be the sound of the music our intertwined spirits have created on high? We know it already: “Now all the days of begging / The days of theft / No more gasping for a breath / The air has filled me head-to-toe / And I can see the ground far below / I have this breath / And I hold it tight / And I keep it in my chest / With all my might / I pray to God this breath will last / As it pushes past my lips / As I gasp.” And so, Holly Golightly, if you can forgive, then give and give. And give an answer of affirmation and take my hand as I ask you once more, “May I have this dance?”

Author's Note

Quotations are from Rainer Maria Rilke's "First Duino Elegy" and Florence + The Machine's "Between Two Lungs." Artwork by Sunanta.