I Love/Have/Know/Am Dance

Poem by Keegan Miller (he/him)

I love dance.  

I love to dance, also.  

I love to watch the movements of dancers 

far beyond my own ability, framed in the grand spectacle of a ballet. 

I love to feel my own body move 

in shapes and motions that mirror the turbulent thoughts within my mind. 

I have suffered through dance. 

I have grown, through dance. 

I have spent nights alone  

returning from lessons to ice feet broken in the pursuit of flight. 

I have learned so much  

more than I could ever have known without forcing myself to move. 

I know friends who dance. 

I know friends who dance, too. 

I know my dance classmates and peers in the way only dancers can 

understanding their joy and anguish at this thing which makes us whole. 

I know friends who have never set foot in a studio 

I see them nod their heads or bounce their feet to music. 

I am my own dance. 

I am me, so I dance. 

I am the person I am because of dance 

tracing my path along as it winds through place and time, I keep its rhythm. 

I am so besotted with my love for this sport 

I cannot help but pull my friends by the hands and show them what it means to dance.