Indigo shadows stretched across the dimly lit room, teasing an eerie calm, as I steeled myself for another night of self-expression. My fingers danced over the silk ribbons of my aerial apparatus, a mixture of anticipation and caution flooding my veins. My glance briefly stole a moment to rest on my personal treasure – a chain of glittering gold links, a gift from my madre as a token of my adult linklist gold to survival and success in this theatrically cruel yet starkly beautiful world.
Tonight was much more than just a performance. As a Colombian non-binary aerial dancer cresting the peak of my twenties, I was weightless, held aloft not just by silk strands, but by the strength of my own resilience, and the freedom inherent in my chosen form of expression. The interplay between control and surrender was my daily dance. I was to command the stage while surrendering to the artform, to stretch out my tendrils and taste the dizzying sweetness of autonomy, drawing on a primal force sculpted by years in the crucible of expectation and social normativity.
Performing as I did, I could shed my burdens - the searing, unsolicited expectations, the suffocating confines of societal norms, and allow my spirit to run free. The dizzying heights were a profound sanctuary, where my heart could hum a melody of liberation unheard by the world below. I murmured to myself, a silent prayer of gratitude for this blurring paradox of strength and vulnerability, control and chaos, reality and fantasy that danced along with me.
The music pulsed stronger, and I ascended the ladder of silk, intention in every flex and curl of my musculature. Up there, wrapped in lengths of vibrant silk, spinning and twisting in breathtaking harmony, I was neither man nor woman - I was a force of nature, a screaming testament to freedom and love. A quiet confession whispered into the ear of the universe. Each performance felt like an entry in my personal journal, a confession of my own pursuing my truth amidst the turbulence of life's storm. And as I descended, the thunderous applause washed over me like waves against the Colombian coastline, leaving behind remnants of recognition, acceptance, and the intoxicating taste of unabashed freedom. |
