You grow in a room where the walls have eyes. 

Until they don’t, anymore.

i.

Fiberglass girl balanced on the tips of her toes. 

Bump into her, she might break.

Except there’s a hardness there, in the way she holds herself. In the way that her arms are set and her eyes are narrowed. “Again!” the teacher orders, tapping her under the chin as a signal she needs to keep her head up. Stop looking at the floor, Natasha! The only thing that should be touching it is your feet. And even then, girl, you are meant to be flying—not just dancing. If you’re not flying across the floor, you’re not doing it right. She does the spins again and again until her heart is racing and she can’t tell which way is up. Push yourself harder, Natasha. Stretch your arms out farther, kick your leg up harder.

“I don’t want to be a ballerina,” she says after the last order of again. “and I am not a puppet you can make dance by pulling a string or saying again, again, again!”

“Then why, Natasha, are you here?”

ii.

words

iii.

words

iv.

words

v.

She wipes the corners of his mouth, getting rid of the red smudges of lipstick. So no one knows—he makes sure that this has been drilled into her head. No one can find out about the girl curling around her superior and sinking her cat claws into his chest and back when they just sort of crash together, stifling cries and waking up in the morning when he’s pushing his trousers back on and she’s trying to keep the sinking feeling out of her stomach. She is the girl who wears the green ribbon around her neck to keep her head from sliding off, and every time he creeps out the back window the ribbon comes undone and she sinks into the bed with her hands pressed against her ears. Keep it together, she urges. Keep it together.

“See you soon,” he says.

vi.

He kisses her and it leaves a taste like ash in her mouth. Her red solider. “You make a beautiful bride.”