she is turning it into a form as bourgeois as the weekly news-magazine; shouldn't we kill it, huh, the whole idea of the "extra-curricular," and leave ballet to the professionals? Those skinny, cruel, obsessive freaks? Those beautiful freaks who tumble out of Toulouse Lautrec and Calvin Klein ads? We used to see the ballet, we formed a club back in the day, and after a year of resilience, and after surviving a perfectly weatherable, to-be-expected course of attrition, it ceased to bore us, those who remained. We would go and we would love it. We got it. It was ours because we'd fought for it. I'm SERIOUS, it was the most beautiful thing I ever did in my entire life. It gave my life meaning and it cracked me to the core, and I still dream, I still...we were so aggressive then. We became mean. Big and impressive. We would run through the streets and shriek about it. We'd rip our clothes from our bodies, stare men down, and sing about it. So why do I find it all so wearying now? Is it because I have a daughter who does it and I just don't "believe" her in it? That I just don't find her believable, that she corrupts everything she "explores"? Is it because I manage people at work now, that I take another human life and manage it, and get paid more for that than for doing something actual? Is it because I can't read on the subway anymore—but I see other, younger women, reading books on the subway, right when they get on, and I can't read one, it's like sipping vinegar, disgusting, medicinal, apple vinegar, dripping on the fat of my lip, the idea of pulling a book out of my satchel at that hour, but watching these girls, who look out at me from under heavy bangs, from behind black skeletal glasses, through my invisible contacts, these intelligent girls in captivating pea-coats, until I flinch from the recognition...is that what made me question the ballet and suckle my television? Is that when I quit dancing with death and settled for living? WHEN did I commit myself to living? Trust me, your whole fantasy realm is out the window, is ruined by a child. Even an imaginary one, like mine. Unless you can give birth to death or to suffering or anguish don't do it. It's like, before you create one, your entire life could be described by Freud. Afterwards, it's no, not in the least, my dear. Now your entire life is an article in Redbook magazine. But still, I keep telling myself, isn't it possible—and I wait for my Tod-in-shining-armor, and a child we'll have and name "Night" because "night" is the English word for the nighttime. My Tod in shining cast-iron, and I have looked at caskets online, does that weird you out just a little bit—I have looked at them, and I have thought, "Which one would I look good in?" because if I leave it up to my sister—she's the kind who, bless her heart, will buy you a pretty dress for your birthday, only it's the exact kind of pretty that just so happens to make you and only you look like a tortoise trying to walk upright—she's well-meaning is what I mean, but while a dress is just temporary, and while a diamond is forever, a casket, a casket is a comment on eternity. Yes I want death, if just to say, "Ha, Life, you weren't all there was; you weren't everything. You arrived in the East and shot pink rays all over my face but you had your problems, your blemishes. I warmed to you, I even, yes, I loved you terribly, and I did not need that love to be requited, in a like-to-like manner; but sometimes, but still, you know, I did not need you to entirely ignore me, either. I mean, could you really not see me there, screaming?"

A
Shakespeare...add 200: Keats...add 200: us.