fool's gold

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what inspired you to first dance? what first captivated your attention to the art which so many sacrifice themselves for? was it the satin shoes, or the tinkering of "the dance of the sugarplum fairy" in your great-grandmother's music box? did your interest pique at watching the dancers float, seemingly effortlessly, across an enchanted woodland? or do you claim the glamour of the white feathers, the glittering tulle, as your initial inspiration?

how long did it take for you to realize that glamor, like beauty, exists only in the eyes of the beholder? did you not realize it until it was too late to escape? by the time you understood the idealistic-seeming world so many strive for was more or less a sham, were you too caught up in the throes to give it up?

it happens to the best of us. i should know

i walked with you in a common place

have you ever looked at a stranger and just knew that they were a dancer? maybe it was the way they held themselves, or the way they were dressed. perhaps just a feeling.

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you share a glance, perhaps a small smile. you nod in each other's directions, sharing knowing looks. because the odds are, just as you knew about them, they know the same about you

alive

why do we dance? why do we breathe? surely those things are interchangeable. surely they are one, as two beloveds, or the smell of salt and the roaring of the ocean.

as i write this, i am listening to a beautiful ballet, and am inspired to think how wonderful it is to be alive. because whether or not one is a dancer themselves, it only takes one experience at a ballet to fill one with a spirit that will change them forever.

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that spirit is the best kind of life there is