Lovers' Diary - Cuileann

As you know, I had the absolute pleasure of playing host to Cuileann of Eating a Tangerine just the other week. We were wondering when we'd first gotten to know each other & we ransacked my email account. We went through all our correspondence and found this poem. Holly had sent it to me a few months ago for me to read before I put it up here. I was waiting for the go ahead to post it, so I asked if I could. Obviously, she agreed.

It feels like I have known this girl for years. She is the first friend to stay over at my house (where I live with my family) for as long as I can remember & I've been in the house for 10 years. You already know how amazing she is online. In person she is somehow a thousand times better. There aren't words enough to describe her and I won't do her the injustice of trying. What she doesn't know, and I never said, is that I have never felt more comfortable with a person. Ever. That doesn't sound like a lot. But it is. It's huge. Thank you. I love you.

Make sure you check out her space on the interweb. In particular, these pieces. My Astronaut Sister, Prescription & Conclusion on Ze Summer Goals, just to name a few.

You are expecting our bleeding feet.
You are expecting Lucy between technique class and pointe class sobbing because she asked our teacher for a recommendation to an arts camp, not for "a fucking weight analysis."
Maybe you are expecting the subway rides home at night, or at least that I had my hair in a bun; I'll tell you also that's when I did my biology reading and hoped no one would step on my poor shredded toes.
Maybe you've imagined girls in the shadows in the wings, watching older dancers rehearsing.
It was me and Lorena watching, and it was Naomi and her partner working on the pas de deux they would perform in the evening, and it was also two tiny girls who crept in to stir the tips of their baggy slippers through the rosin, just like the real ballerinas.
You haven't thought about the handwashing at night, wringing out the leotards in the bathroom sink and hanging them to dry in the shower.
Can you picture the locker room, the air close with sweat and ribbons and bare dancer?
You didn't imagine the ferocious long-torsoed girl who came to take class with us after her parents took her out of SFBS, the one who could leap almost like a man and would tuck the pendant of her necklace under the strap of her leotard.
You don't know the names of the girls with the loveliest arches and the highest extensions, you can't picture the girl who had carried melted Otter Pops for her lunch, or do you remember that sign she left that one time?
The way the Friday/Saturday technique teacher's voice got all funny when he bent over demonstrating the first barre exercise.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; rosin and rug burns; dental floss and decolletage; and I know, you're expecting that I quit, everyone and their mom quits ballet, but hey kiddo, it's just one of those things you get over, it's just one of those things you talk about every now and again until you're done processing it for the rest of your life.

Cuileann x