110 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
110 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
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---
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layout: layouts/poem.njk
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title: Ice Dancer
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description: In another life I am a figure skater.
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---
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```
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In another life I am a figure skater. My wingspan soars me
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higher. I bear feathers from each skeletal arm I use to strangle
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the judges with, their clipboards cut right into their necks,
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drawing the scores equal. I fly right upward,
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right projectile on the floor, full of yesterday’s meat,
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right holy. In this life where I am a figure skater,
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I am also a bird, skimming over the ice in its half-melted state
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to pick up any men I can find. Walk with me, I tell them. In my mouth I have
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cut and plucked and extracted every part of my mangle and now
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I reflect some sort of beautiful innard
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sprawled out over the arena. You can walk inside.
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You can drape your winter coat over the cage. You can slither; I
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am digestible as I shuck myself away. I grow
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unwombed. My uterus prolapses
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as I land the jump, and now they’re all too damn dead
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for me to win.
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In this life where I am a figure skater
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I am taught by the very best of coaches, and I am
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the very best of figure skaters. I win gold. I win diamond
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and platinum. I win every award for my performance
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as the littlest of girls, even when I was too tall
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to get myself unstuck from the playhouse
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so I was never quite right for the role. My coach
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tells me that if I break myself up
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into something smaller,
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I have a better chance at winning.
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I think of myself as a starship vast,
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life support sucked up by my toothless
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wolfing, releasing all of its weaponry
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into the void as it spins on abandoned.
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I think of myself as an animal
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with multiple jaws. In this life
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I grow up wanting to be
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a marine biologist—
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I become a figure skater instead.
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I work with the frozen form
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of every dream I have ever had,
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dancing across divinity & slicing
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it up beneath my feet. And I am graceful.
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I’m so fucking graceful that the ice
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itself cannot pull away. Score me.
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Rate how I feel. Nine out of ten?
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No – seven? Was I really that bad?
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Do you want to try me again?
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I won’t stop dancing for you.
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I’ll spin for you. Look into the spiral
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and watch the pendulum. I’ll jump
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for you. I’ll jump and I’ll make
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it really land this time. If
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I could go back in time I don’t
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think I’d let them do the surgery.
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```
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