Silent Dancer

The stage is set

I take it and dance

Letting my body speak

As I don’t know the script.

The words spill out in haunting pleas.

Gracefully groveling

The motions flowing through the memory of my being.

A mindless psychic scream.

Rise for me now

Applause and tears prove that you care!

I will savor it later, as I cry for the heavens,

As I tell myself one day they’ll all hear.

K.B. Silver

~TW~

In the eighth grade, I performed in the school talent show. That wasn’t unusual; I performed plenty. My grandmother kept one of my leotards with her most of the time and had me perform at gatherings on demand. I consider this performance different because of its content. I choreographed it to the song “Concrete Angel” by Martina McBride.

I planned the steps to the verses and left the chorus sections to improve the movements, and it was by far my best performance. I can imagine that was partly because it was one of the last times I performed in public. I was so emotionally moved by this song, but I still couldn’t break through to see that it was me I was relating to in the song.

After the performance, two different teachers came up to me and told me I did an amazing job and how they were brought to tears by the amount of real feeling I injected into it. Not once did they think to check up on me, have the counselor check on me, etc…

The first two years of high school were the testing grounds that actually brought forth the first horrendous memories of the long-term childhood abuse that I suffered. High school is a whole other story, isn’t it?