All the time, made her dance. When she danced at home, she danced barefoot, drifted, danced more than she walked, danced with the music because it's what the music wanted her to do, because it filled her up - but here in the dark and the stink and the noise, he had strapped her feet into heels, into cages, and every night they burned - every night, dance, dance for me, show them you're mine, show them how fucking hot you are.
In the fairy tales, girls dance themselves to death.
She dances not for the music, not because she wanted to, but because he insisted, because it was worse for her when she didn't, because she was part of him and must do as bid. She danced because everyone had to want her so Jason could deny them, could unleash that cruel mocking laugh. It was not enough to be desired himself; he needed them to want her and be unable to possess her.
You.
All the girls in all the stories are you, just walls built between them to compartmentalize, so the girl dancing herself to death could be a different girl than the one who huddled in the bed at 3 am, so they could both be different from the girl who went to school and from the girl who went elsewhere, and every jolt of pain in her feet was another hairline fracture of her self.
Once upon a time there was a girl who danced, and once upon a time there was a girl who nearly died and who lost everything, and you did not dance again for seven years.
"Chains and Crippling Shoes" consists of a pendant made from an old ring of uncertain metal content, tiny white pearls, and gold wire with a coating that should make it safe for folks with metal sensitivities, and earrings with three pearls suspended on gold-fill earwires. Made by
sofiaviolet.Sofia says: This piece represents an aspect of my relationship with my high school boyfriend, who was very skilled at abusing me and then convincing me nothing was wrong. I put up with sexual assault, the methodical erasure of my boundaries, emotional manipulation and dependence, and continual psychological trauma for eighteen months, before he left me due to my erratic behavior and the pockets of my resistance that he hadn't been able to root out.
My rape, the single instance I recognized and confronted him about during the relationship, was five years ago this month.
"What would you do, if you didn't have to finish school or work or worry about anything?"
Seventeen years old, panic over periods one day late, and practice proposals with a class ring. This was just the start of his attempts to own me. He never could believe the things I didn't want, the things he thought all girls wanted because they were girls, and most especially me because I was his girlfriend: his babies and to be harassed into playing at "real rape" with virgins and strangers and the option to lie and call it a game, six months after he raped me for real.
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This and the last two are quite autobiographical.
Team Venture is fingerpainting in their coffee spills; every hour wounds, the last one kills.
Just got my copy of Electric Velocipede #20, which includes my poem "Nine Things About Oracles" and my story "And to my Wife...", which editor John Klima kicked ass typesetting. After you sponsor me, you should go buy your copy.