Eternal Dance

We dance, I and my misshapen friends. One with sabre tooth. Another with talons curved in to wound palms. Yet another with empty eye sockets seeing everything. With it’s scaly skin we create a full moon on new moon nights. We stutter our broken stories in glorious disharmony. We, broken children who grow up to be fragile bullies, teaching ourselves that it was okay to hurt, to bleed inside. It was good to smile at our torturers with widened lips showing our teeth, yet cringing, our shoulders tucked low. Thoughts of revenge—a forbidden fantasy, an ecstasy. Won’t you join? Would you join us, in this ballet where the dress code is nudity and stilettos piercing our heels to leave red footprints in the sands of memory?

• Thiruvathira Thirunal Lakshmi Bayi was born the XII Princess of the erstwhile royal family of Travancore.