Dancing

Sways from limb to limb, out my fingernails and pores.

My thighs squat and my hips undulate

To the rhythm and the

Underlying percussive beat.

Graceful in jeans and kurta,

Or salwar kameez,

Rolling on the floor, stretching myself.

Spinning, floating, climbing inside the music, opening.

Climbing out of my skin.

The music enters my feet first. Then my brain hears.

My head and hips and shoulders

Find the truth in the song

And I move.

My body curving around the shape of the musical notes.

Sometimes I move in place, my feet rooted.

Other times I walk serpentine through the bodies

Feeling the smooth and dustless hardwood floors beneath my bare feet.

Sometimes my eyes are closed.

Other times I scan my dancing tribe.

And only on brave days do I look into the eyes of my companions,

Seeing their truths and joy or sorrow,

Or madness.

Sometimes I am drawn to others that share a common energetic field,

A matched set of emotions wafting from their centers.

I dance next to them, or sometimes, touch them, dance off them.

But most times I dance by myself, and heal.

Sometimes I cry,

Sometimes I thrash my arms and stomp my feet.

Some songs elicit bouncing and laughing,

Some pound through my heart chakra and I stand still in one spot,

Letting the bass permeate all my meridians and channels and exit my hair follicles.

Moving with intention, with awareness, or with neither.

Moving just to be moving.

Moving because the music makes me.

Letting go of my improper belief that I control anything. Even my body.