Dance

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”   - Rumi

              I walked into a studio for the first time ever. Covered with white walls on all fours and ceramic tiles from the floor up till the waistline, the dim orange and white lights made everything look better than it actually was. The people looked better. The smiles did too. The movement. The pain. The sweat. Life in general, looked better. I wasn't used to this comfortable of an atmosphere, I was just a troubled young man. I walked into the studio to release my inhibitions. After weeks and months of being impassive and pretending to be someone I'm not and was never meant to be, I needed a place where I could emote. Be myself. Understand what was inside, and do my own thing. I walked in thinking I could pop, lock, drop, move, groove. But when the beats started hitting my eardrums, I could do none. I looked down and stared with amazement at my two left feet. I heard a God whisper in my ears, "Give it time".

              Two months down the line, I didn't care. I learnt how to let go. I've learnt how to give in now. Every evening, surrounded by a God and demigods, life gets better. I can understand sound and why it exists now, and I can hear the lyrics in instrumentals too. I get the history behind a beat, and I can see what music does to my soul. I came to this place to emote, but little did I know, I can do so much more with myself now. I find my body speaking for itself when the music is played. It senses the pride, the groove, the pain and the feeling of letting go with each beat. I can hear it talking through the movement, showing me things I didn't know existed inside. And I now realise that this is a part of me. A part that tailors me more and more every day, makes me feel a different kind of pain than what I felt months ago; the kind I like. This part of me is glad that I walked inside the studio with two left feet a couple of months ago, the same part that fears a lot less than what it did in the past. This part is what says 'fuck you' to every negative wave that is destined to come my way, the same part that teaches me how to face it, better every day. "Dance from the inside first" is what a God had once told me, and it's what I do. So it doesn't matter if you or me are shackled by others and made to feel insane, because while they struggle to find the music in them,

we'll be dancing it all off together.