There is absent space in my chest where pain used to be 

And the muscle memory has not yet learned to let go

It has not yet been filled or replaced by a new substance 

There is no donated blood or honey to fill in the gap

No replacement for rot or a mold for something better to come along

It just remains vacant like an empty hotel room until the next murder mystery is set to take place

And it will already know the best ways to remove stains from the carpet and to hide the body in the bathtub 

and to rig the doorknob with a lock that can’t be picked 

This space is apprehensive and prepared 

Knowing much too well that our visitor will return like an abusive relationship

Take me back

Take me back

I’ll never leave you again I promise

Give me one more chance 

So, I take out the bleach

        And the rags tainted pink

                And the air freshener that smells like apple cinnamon 

And I forget what pain first felt like as quickly as I start again

I can feel my body adjusting even before it comes 

Like a prediction 

        Like a tradition

                Like a form of conditioning, 

of knowing how to define familiarity and how to depend on it 

as if it were life support even when it’s poison

How to crave it like a morphine drip, like a sign of salvation

When I was a training en pointe I got used to the company of unfamiliar feeling

Of adjusting to ache

Of allowing pain and tension into my body to stretch my tendons and elongate my limbs 

instead of pulling at them like a stubborn door handle

It was always an easing motion, like lowering myself into the bathtub

It made me trust, even if it hurt, even if it was coated in betrayal,

It was an act of practice

Practicing to make our bodies strong and full of dichotomy

Heavy yet weightless

Sharp yet fluid

With sloping arms and curving middles.

I never knew my body could feel like a storage vessel

For knowledge.

        For pain.

                For memory.

It is a well-known fact that the more you repeat an action, the easier it becomes 

That is where the phrase “practice makes perfect” comes from

And I thought that if I could channel every aspect of my life

        that was losing shape, 

                and falling apart, 

                        and becoming limp and helpless 

into my control over my body, it would make me feel like I was in control of my mind.

But when my pointe teacher wrote on the mirror the words “practice makes…” 

with her blunt black marker and instructed us to finish the phrase

It didn’t end with perfect

The answer was permanent

And she was right

I was molding myself into something I couldn’t undo.

The more you repeat an action, the easier it becomes

So unknowingly, I built, and I molded, and I sculpted myself to be a granite effigy: cemented and unable to move on.

I was used to the routine

So time and time again, 

I’d take out the bleach

        And the rags tainted pink

                And the air freshener that smells like apple cinnamon 

Asking me to take it back

To let it back in

I don’t know how to sever the tie without my statue of a body shattering completely.

She called this response muscle memory

How after doing something so many times, your body knows exactly how to align.

Spine straight

        Ribs in

                Relevé locked.

                        Reminisce

                                Blame yourself

                                        Get lost

Until it was automatic

She said, “You won’t even have to think about it. 

Your arms will be strong, your ankles crackling and reaching, 

your chest lifted, and your ribs tucked in as if holding your breath”

And I am holding my breath

Waiting for that all too familiar feeling

But also, waiting for a day when there won’t be blood rushing back into my system

but honey

A change in the familiar

A new tradition

Superhumanly sweet

The day when my muscles won’t remember

And my brain won’t be conditioned to wait for anything other than

light