I want to dance for money.
After that hot summer night in Greece,
I would have tucked the euros into my neon bikini,
walked down the strip, to buy some shells by the sea.
Drink my coffee for free
while lying on the beach
before I head home to Reality.
Where I am not a dancer, but a PA.
And I am safe and have a wage.
But, oh, what I would give for one night
to put on that white dress again
with the low neckline and dirtied hem.
And dance for them.
To have the paper stick to my skin,
golden and glistening.
I want to dance for money.
But it is never as simple as that, is it?
About the Creator
Katerina Petrou
Combining my passions of travelling, food, poetry and photography, I welcome you to read my stories.
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Foot Bindings
I asked my grandmother how she knew she'd fallen in love. I am not sure I ever did love him, she said. This was before I met my husband. I was naive, a naked spring, a raw nerve of a thing. That cannot ever be me, I knew. Sadness swept in gently like a Moscow thaw. It is no simple thing, looking into a woman's vast soul and seeing its foot bindings. Now, in Italy divorced with my skin singed off, when I say I don't love him mean: I have succeeded at feeling nothing most days and it mostly works. Do you want the comfort of Nothing? Do you want Nothing, too? Be warned: you'll never be free, even when you are nothing. Here is what doesn't work: Accepting the stages of grief. Talking about it. Sitting with the feeling. Missing him—no, the person you were when you believed in death do us part. Writing poetry. That, too. When I say I don't love him I mean: I feel capsized in an endless, starved tide. What sometimes works: selective memory. You must forget ripe tomatoes and his beard and feeling perfectly sheltered in a big blue world. Forget coffee in bed, laughter watching TV, blowing out the candles on the birthday cake and the quiet all-encompassing knowledge that you are chosen. Remember only how love turned to a banal everyday survival act, a trapeze act unsure whether he will catch you, how the warmth stagnated and became sour, remember the foot bindings and remember the resentment boiling in your veins as you stick it out for the kids. Six-hour Netflix binges help, too. A man's fingers tracing your spine. Frozen pizza at 2 a.m. Random trips to the museum just to stand near things that last a while. The realization that crying won’t change anything. Seeing that life is just a dream, and refusing to participate in your own suffering. Bite your fist. Walk on eggshells around joy. When I say I don't love him, I mean he didn’t break my heart, he just stopped touching it and it forgot how to beat right.
By Ella Bogdanovaabout 9 hours ago in Poets
Feelings Never Die
It is Valentine's Day again, and it bought back memories that were over fifty years old. It bought me back to 1971, and I woke up and I knew my baby was due today. I was big and pregnant, and I felt like I was about to burst wide open. Imagine my surprise when the doctor told my I had a due date of February 14. I couldn't believe it, and since my baby was due today, I felt I could indulge myself a bit. I had gained a lot of weight, and chocolate was on the no-no list, but I had came to the end of this pregnancy, and I hoped it would be okay, after all I would deliver this baby today. So I walked across the street to the grocery story, and bought myself, a peppermint patty, covered in chocolate, my favorite. Me and my Valentine's baby would enjoy it together.
By Susan Payton3 days ago in Fiction
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