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The Queen’s Escape a short story by Jeu Lael Liora

Warning: graphic descriptions

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THE QUEEN was unworthy of her title.

She moved in a total absence of grace. A shade of plum dimpled into the ghostly skin under her eyes. Her arms were frail and her feet were scorched, blisters and layers of skin peeling off only to be met with hot grains of sand.

Despite the treachery that sprawled across the desert, her hand kept squeezing her child's fragile one. She didn't dare to let go, and so did he.

When they arrived at a small village, the Queen and her son received immediate help. Clearly it seemed the people were oblivious to the kingdom that ruled from a desert away, not sparing a second look to examine their expensive clothing. They laid the Queen in a tent as her son waited, a foreign toy keeping him occupied.

"What happened to your feet?" a woman asked. She wrung out a damp cloth, water dripping into the basket underneath.

The Queen didn't answer, let alone shifted her gaze to her playful son. The woman followed her eyes and smiled knowingly.

"I see. You gave your shoes for him to wear in the desert, yes?" she said with a gentle voice, dabbing the cloth on the younger woman's forehead. The Queen nodded, strands of raven hair sticking to her collarbones.

The woman’s eyes trailed up to the red marks that encircled the Queen’s neck. After a few seconds, she averted her gaze and continued wringing the cloth.

It was only after a couple of moments later the mother and son would be left alone. They rested until stars glimmered upon the secluded village. The young boy wrapped his arms around his mother's side, cheek pressed against her shoulder, eyes staring into space.

He was exhausted, but to rest after their treacherous escape from the kingdom felt like bliss. It was near silent, the only sound being his mother's steady breaths and soft murmurs of busy villagers outside the tent.

Flashes of chaos in the past day were still pristine in his mind; running, screaming, and the pain in his mother's eyes. It was the worst day yet. Usually, Calum’s father would only go so far as hitting, slapping, or pulling hair. But today was different, marked by the red imprints on his mother’s neck. She almost died.

Slowly, he tried to forget them, his focus centered on his mother's hushed breaths. His eyes were closing, thoughts put to silence. He was finally falling asleep.

Someone screamed.

Both of the mother and child's eyes opened, alerted and disoriented expressions written on their faces. The Queen sat up, tore off her blanket, put on her slippers and approached the source of sound, peeking at the village. Her head immediately turned to her son, frantically grabbed his hand and led them outside.

The little boy couldn't believe what was happening before him.

It was a vomit of light and motion. The place was scattered with torches and armored men on horses, all objects and bodies thrown into disorder. Booming with unbearable noises like fireworks erupting inside his ears. It all happened in a matter of seconds.

"Where is the Queen?!"

Fiery yells clashed with screams of agony escaping the innocent villagers' mouths as the mother and son ran for their lives. The boy could hear hundreds of men barking their remarks of ridicule and cruelty towards his mother.

"Come back, my love," the familiar voice of the king sends fear sprawling through Calum’s veins.

Still running, Calum tried to catch a glance of his father. He held a glare seething with menace, a reflection of fire casted on his glowing eyes as lifeless bodies fell before him. His appearance was spine-chilling, a scar etched across his left eye, skin pale and raw.

"People! Behold your home," the king continued with a taunting laugh, his horse slowing its trots on the rocky ground.

"The one to blame for the ruin of your village is the coward of a Queen." he swings his sword, grazing the hilt on his stallion's iron armor.

"What about your son, your Highness? Shame he has to see all of this at a young age... Shame to know that he was raised by a coward."

Everything stopped when he was brought into a small shed. His mother started rapidly stacking hay on his body until it covered him entirely, leaving little space for his nose and eyes.

"Mama,"

"Don't go," the boy cried, tears started to stream down his cheeks.

His mother held a soft gaze, water pooling at the bottom of her eyes. Her smile was delicate, speaking thousands of unsaid words he couldn't comprehend.

"Stay here." she said. "Promise me, son." he nodded weakly.

The Queen had her son transfixed on her face, drowning out the chaos behind her. She reached into the hay and kissed his forehead gently.

"I love you, Calum."

"I love you more."

All sense of safety and serenity was torn away the second his mother stood up and ran out of his vision, this foreign feeling of dread and hopelessness rippled and crawled to every inch of his body. His mother wasn't here anymore-- he was left alone in the chaos and relying on feeble forage to keep him alive.

In that stack of hay, 6 year-old Calum wept for hours, praying for his mother to come back.

She never did.

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For this week’s creative project, I made a video essay on Maddy and Nate’s abusive relationship in HBO’s teen drama show euphoria. Warning: spoilers and flashes in the video.

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I played the instrumental of Shore by Daniela Andrade, and it’s been quite a while since I played the guitar, so please bear with me 😅 The poem can be found here: https://familyfriendpoems.com/poem/18085

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WHAT MADE ME CHOOSE ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS FOR MY ISSUE?

As someone who loves music, I always look for deeper meanings in songs besides their catchy melodies and good vocals. In the search for my contemporary issue, I listened to my playlists without the intention of finding inspiration there. However, a certain song came on, and from the moment I heard the lyrics, I instantly knew: my issue is going to be abusive relationships.

It’s quite funny if you ask which song did I listen to: it’s called Tolerate It by Taylor Swift. Now, before you laugh, I have to say that this song truly captures the heart-wrenching feeling of a woman who is stuck in a one-sided, restricting marriage. There’s a lyric she sings that struck a cord in me;

I made you my temple, my mural, my sky; now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life.

However, I do realize that the magnitude of abusive relationships goes way beyond a song. A few years ago, I witnessed a close friend of mine go through one. It broke my heart seeing how this relationship impacted her. When I helped her deal with the temperamental ex-boyfriend, I was surprised of how draining this process can be; I can’t imagine this being repeated time after time.

So, with this issue in mind, I sincerely hope that I can raise awareness to my viewers and tell those who may be going through a tough relationship that they’re not alone.

With love,

Liora

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https://href.li/?https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pnmxy5q-_kIT0c_RvdIGAKfkvmEd0Atv/view?usp=sharing

I read the poem “one foot out the door” (stylized in lowercase) by Indie Adams. Here is my take on it, including a reading and analysis of each stanza.

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https://href.li/?https://drive.google.com/file/d/18j9a2PreUtNENLL15OWgD5-nKX9QJiiN/view?usp=sharing

This is Kirana’s (Business Administration student) interview only, shortened to fit three minutes. To hear the full version where I interviewed three people, please see my previous post.

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https://href.li/?https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BPw1cdQXOyp16LieTVIfpUIhseqkV38-/view?usp=sharing 

I interviewed Psychology, Social Welfare, and Business Administration students on abusive relationships. It was interesting to hear their different perspectives on the subject matter; I obtained new insights just by conducting these interviews. Have a listen!

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It Ends with Us is a contemporary drama-romance novel written by Colleen Hoover, published in 2016. It tells the relationship between a troubled businesswoman named Lily Bloom and Ryle Kincaid, a neurosurgeon with a haunting past. The story unfolds in the walk of their blissful and horrific relationship laced with recurring themes of abuse, and a former lover who returns and disrupts her life.

We are brought directly into a woman’s mind who witnessed first-hand abuse in her family, and who is facing a possibility for it to repeat in her own relationship. Hoover knew what message she wanted to tell and she did not just tell a story to achieve that–she pried directly into our feelings. Ryle was built into this near-perfect character. Hoover had us fall in love with him like Lily did, only for her to pull the rug underneath.

In the middle of the story, she shocked us with a “fifteen-second” attack. This switch in personality was lightning fast, but it did not last long. Instead, Ryle’s string of apologies and promises is what brought us into the rotation.

Further into the book, it is revealed that Ryle has PTSD as the stem of his abusive behavior. Like Lily, I found myself rationalizing this. His promises were so convincing and it’s clear that he shows remorse, then he continues on to become the near-perfect version of himself. Ryle showers Lily with affection and care more than before until the second incident comes. That’s when I realized that is how most abusive relationships work out. It’s a spiraling cycle of hurt, remorse, and affection.

When they made it to the third incident, that is when things have crossed the line. The contents of this book overwhelmed me for a few times, and for the safety of my readers, it is better to leave this one unsaid. Lily had to leave; she feared for her life, and that speaks a thousand volumes on this matter.

You may think, why didn’t she just leave the first time? Truthfully, reading the story, I felt how it was to be in Lily’s position, and dare I say that I agreed with her to give Ryle another chance.

Here is an excerpt from the book that explains this well:

People on the outside of situations like these often wonder why the woman goes back to the abuser. I read somewhere once that 85 percent of women return to abusive situations. That was before I realized I was in one, and when I heard that statistic, I thought it was because the women were stupid. I thought it was because they were weak. I thought these things about my own mother more than once.

But sometimes the reason women go back is simply because they’re in love. I love my husband, Ellen. I love so many things about him. I wish cutting my feelings off for the person who hurt me was as easy as I used to think it would be. Preventing your heart from forgiving someone you love is actually a hell of a lot harder than simply forgiving them.

“How could she love him after what he did to her? How could she contemplate taking him back?”

It’s sad that those are the first thoughts that run through our minds when someone is abused. Shouldn’t there be more distaste in our mouths for the abusers than for those who continue to love the abusers?

A detail I would like to highlight is when Lily met Ryle, he was described to be angry and furiously kicking a chair. This is also called property damage, a common occurrence in abusive relationships. Property damage is a form of emotional abuse considered “symbolic violence” (Engel, 2002). We were already given a major hint on Ryle’s abusive nature from the beginning of the book.

Another detail is how quick and impulsive Ryle’s decision was to marry Lily. This is a warning sign in abusive relationships: quick involvement. Many people in abusive relationships dated or knew their abusive partners for less than six months before they were married, engaged or living together (Milligan.edu, 2014).

The book ends with a powerful line that serves as the title: “It ends with us.” says Lily to her newborn daughter. She breaks the cycle of abuse that started in her family before it could enter her own.

Truly, each chapter and passage of It Ends with Us holds incredible substance that could teach young minds the warning signs of abuse and the steps they should take when encountering one.

Sometimes it is the one who loves you who hurts you the most.

And if they truly love you, they would do everything in their power to not harm you, even if it means ending the relationship. Abusers and abusive relationships should not be tolerated.

Source:

CNN Editorial Research. (2021, June 2). Domestic (Intimate Partner) Violence Fast Facts. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/06/us/domestic-intimate-partner-violence-fast-facts/index.html

Dwiastuti, Winda & Yamin, Harumi. (2020). The Simplification Domestic Violence in Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us (2016). 10.2991/assehr.k.200729.015.

Karakurt, G., & Silver, K. E. (2013). Emotional abuse in intimate relationships: The role of gender and age. National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3876290/

Katthebookbloggerblog, V. A. P. B. (2016, August 13). It Ends With Us Spoiler Review. Katthebookblogger. https://katthebookbloggerblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/05/it-ends-with-us-spoiler-review/

Melissa @ BookNerdMomo. (2016, August 19). It Ends With Us//A Discussion. BookNerdMomo. https://booknerdmomo.wordpress.com/2016/08/15/it-ends-with-usa-discussion/

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Reflection on The Yellow Wallpaper by Jeu Lael Liora

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892. The story unfolds like a diary, filled with entries of the narrator telling her experiences staying in a mansion and undergoing a “rest cure”, ideated by her controlling husband. Her mental well-being spirals down as she sees a yellow wallpaper take a life on its own; a woman trapped inside.

The Yellow Wallpaper, as famous as it is, is actually much more than a thriller-slash-horror short story. It takes us into the life of a woman who is trapped--literally and figuratively--in a marriage. In my opinion, what takes place in this story is what we call psychological abuse.

What is psychological abuse?

According to SafeLives UK, psychological abuse involves the regular and deliberate use of a range of words and non-physical actions used with the purpose to manipulate, hurt, weaken or frighten a person mentally and emotionally; and/or distort, confuse or influence a person’s thoughts and actions within their everyday lives, changing their sense of self and harming their well-being.

The unfortunate reality is that 91% of psychological abuse survivors had experienced it at some point in their relationships. Nearly half (48%) of survivors reported regularly being told they were mentally unstable, and over half regularly experienced control in who they could speak to, meet socially or spend time with… sound familiar?

If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?

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It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now.

Not to mention that the narrator’s husband is the one who pitched the idea for her to undergo a “resting cure” in the first place. John, the husband, isolated her from other people and robbed her of her free will, but he does so in a “loving” manner--which brings us to the next discussion:

SafeLives also states that at the beginning of their relationships, 96% of survivors said their partner was charming and affectionate, 93% said they expressed love for them very quickly and 92% wanted to spend a lot of time together. Abusive behaviour is interspersed with warmth and kindness, slowly desensitizing the victim to the behaviour.

I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move, and when I came back John was awake. “What is it, little girl?” he said. “Don’t go walking about like that—you’ll get cold.”

John shows his affection towards the narrator in a caring, yet subtly belittling way. It is how he calls a grown woman, his wife, a “little girl” and applies the concept in their day-to-day lives:

Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down cellar, if I wished, and have it white-washed into the bargain.

The narrator is infantilized, and this leads to a sense of ownership or dominance coming from her husband, but he displays it in affection, care, and condescension. John determines his wife’s thoughts, feelings, and illness for her. In my opinion, the main component at play in this relationship is underestimation. John underestimated his wife’s depression, his wife’s concerns, and just... his wife in general! Being isolated and robbed of freedom is already abuse on its own, especially if that is inflicted by a controlling and misunderstanding husband; it would be mentally tormenting.

Reference:

https://safelives.org.uk/psychological-abuse

https://interestingliterature.com/2019/07/a-summary-and-analysis-of-charlotte-perkins-gilman-the-yellow-wallpaper/

https://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/the-portrayal-of-mental-abuse-in-the-yellow-wallpaper-by-charlotte-perkins-gilman-Pf8YWyTu

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/yellowwallpaper/quotes/character/john/

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BREAKING POINTE by Jeu Lael Liora

My feet failed to uphold the weight of my body. On the left; peeled skin carved into my knuckles. On the right; tiny craters of blood welling on the tip of my toes. On both sides; wrapped tightly in glistening pink satin.

“This is the cost of hard work,” Headmistress Yelena had said, when one of the girls in the ballet company twisted her ankle after doing one too many fouettes. “Skin bleeds until it gets thicker.”

The girl was given a day’s rest and had orders to come back with a healed ankle. She obeyed and came back doing more fouettes with a pale face and groans of agony. She stopped dancing after that.

As expected, Yelena called her the ballet company’s disgrace. She insisted that the girl was in her most critical moments; like a caterpillar fighting for its way out of the cocoon, but gave up on the last layer.

I wondered how many unbroken layers I had left.

“Attack it! Attack it!” Yelena yelled with so much vigor, her spit flew to the floor. She smacked her palms together in a rhythmic beat, sending an echo through the studio.

We had been rehearsing my solo which included one of the most difficult ballet moves in the world: hops on pointe. My Achilles heel threatened to break free from its hinges and crack in two. Once this session ended, I would take off my shoes to find my toenails covered in red.

“You’re being sloppy, Alyeska.” A Russian accent drawled on her tongue. She shook her head, eyes shut, then snapped open. “Sloppy!”

The company was opening the season with Giselle, and it required all the luck and blessings in the world for me to be selected as Giselle herself. The audition was a brainless two minutes that had devoured two weeks of endless practice. And of course, they made us do the deathly Variation de Giselle. My performance was average, but apparently it was the “most tolerable”. Eight girls came home from the studio in tears, and I was the new villain in the company. They worked as hard as I did.

This small victory was my entrance to Yelena’s mentorship, which was a living nightmare.

“Stop.”

The music died, cold silence entered. She wiped her face with a red palm and exhaled a gust of air. I waited for her next words.

It had been three minutes.

The pianist seemed unfazed and took this as an opportunity to check his phone. Yelena had resorted to standing in front of the window, looking out with both hands on her hips. I was stuck in the middle of the room, head bowed.

God, I wanted to rest so badly but I was scared to, and it was unclear if Yelena even allowed it. To collapse onto the ground would be a luxury. Unfortunately, my body was stuck in this hellish state; too pummeled to recover, yet not frail enough to give up. I didn’t know how long this confusing pause was going to last, but I knew that I couldn’t stand this pain anymore.

So I danced and did the move once more. Then I did it again. And again, and again.

The little crevices of exposed flesh sent a sting through my legs. It was pure pain, yet I greeted it like an old friend. Pain had always lingered in this studio. It lied in Yelena’s screams and venomous comments. It lied in the other ballerina’s cold stares and “accidental” shoves. It lied in every blister, scab, and strained muscle in my body.

I kept on dancing without music, relying on the breathless counts spewing from my lips. My eyes were trained on my kicking foot which felt like it was going to detach and crumple on the floor. Five more, I reminded; five left until my body really gives out. Four, I braced myself for the fall. Three, two, one.

The room echoed with a thump.

In the midst of my weeping, I felt the floor thud and dimple around me. With my head bowed, two tender hands fell on my shoulders.

“Well done.”

Headmistress Yelena slipped her fingers beneath my chin and lifted it up. I saw her, but it felt like I was greeted by someone else; someone much kinder and gentler than the Yelena I had grown familiar to. She had a faint smile on her lips that seemed to spread to her eyes. We lingered in this position for a few seconds until she broke away, walking out of the room.

“Well done”, she said. This was the first time I’d ever heard her say that. Those two words were simple, but they occupied a colossal portion in my internal tank of validation.

So I spent the next two weeks exerting my energy and power like never before. I practiced at home and at the studio. I played the soundtrack to my solo as I washed dishes, walked to school, and did homework. I bruised my knuckles and feet until they were numb. Then I received more remarks of “weak” and “sloppy”.

But I noticed something shift within Yelena. She gave me new pointe shoes, made me an example for the other ballerinas, and moved my rehearsals to the studio upstairs. This shift didn’t only happen to her, it struck me as well. It was bizarre; for a few days, it felt like I was growing a fondness for her. Then I started to dance for her. I wanted to make her proud, I wanted to hear her say “well done” once more.

“Feel it! More emotion!” I had been hearing these two sentences more frequently than I used to. Apparently I showed the wrong emotion: the performance needed to be light-pretty-graceful, not agony-pain-despair. I tried my hardest to land in my final position with grace.

The music ended, and as usual, I welcomed Yelena’s new string of remarks. “Messy. Everything is messy.” she shook her head.

I scrambled to my feet, putting them together and lacing my hands behind my back. As I kept my eyes glued to the floor, trying to silence my heavy breaths, she approached me. “You are getting worse with each rehearsal,”

“I did so much for you and this is how you repay me.” then she left.

My strings had snapped. There was this ugly, dull pain pushing through my chest and my eyes began to water. So, my all wasn’t enough for her. But I understood, things were already complicated from the start.

I wanted excellence, she wanted perfection.

She said she did so much for me. I believe that. She’d given me a tiny glimpse of heaven and daily torrents of hell.

I could have just left. Quit the company and tell her she’s out of her mind-- a brainless tyrant. Join another company and prove her wrong. “This is how you repay me,” Yelena had said. I’ll make her say that a thousand times in her sleep. She’ll have to scream my name when I’m not in the studio. Believe me, I could do it. I could do it. I could--

“One more time,” Yelena entered the room. “I know you can do better.”

So I danced and came home with a twisted ankle.

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Pioneers, First Women in Construction

By Susan Eisenberg

Her sister was shot, and hers found bludgeoned dead in her car trunk; her mother was alcoholic, and hers a suicide; her daughter killed by an uncle, and hers stayed alive thanks to prison. Before the term, date-raped, she was. Before domestic violence, love punched her face.

We wanted the career. Not just skills and money, but structure, focus, printed plans, the rowdy order of raising buildings that years later would still stand right where you left them. We joined a tradition, expected a well-marked path and a welcome. The earnest ads never mentioned

we’d be human minesweepers steering around barricades, sinkholes, lethal instructions, We learned Solidarity was a corporation privately held. Some left in shock. Some were maimed. Some went missing. A few found gold.

Those with talent for sifting real threat from bluff, or detecting hair-triggers before the blast, fared best, We taught ourselves to disarm booby traps, shared hand-drawn maps, and prepared for a long winter. We lied on postcards home.  

What is it about?

Pioneers, First Women in Construction tells the testimony of Susan Eisenberg in her time as one of the first female apprentices in a construction company. The first stanza describes the domestic violence women faced in their homes, the second stanza explains their expectations in beginning their new career, the following describes the devastating reality of their workplace, and the last stanza tells about how the women persevered through their hardships and their solidarity in working together.

My initial thoughts

When I first read this poem, in all honesty, I was deeply confused. Starting from the second stanza, I was perplexed; what does the first stanza have in correlation to the rest of the poem? What does the last stanza even mean? After researching for context, I finally gained an understanding. Regarding that the events of this poem happened not long after the Equal Pay Act (that abolished wage disparity based on gender), we would expect that the once male-dominated work environments would be kind to women. However, based on Eisenberg’s experience, the Equal Pay Act did not guarantee fair treatment. It was striking for me to see that even absolute laws were not able to end gender inequality. It is clear that the key lies in society’s mindset. To eradicate gender discrimination, we must start by changing the way people think. This can be done by raising awareness, be it in the media or in the physical environment around us.

Learn more Here is an article titled 5 ways how to raise awareness on gender equality in science that can help us start tackling this issue. For more context on the Equal Pay Act, this article may be helpful: https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/equal-pay-act

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This is Kirana’s interview only, shortened to fit three minutes. To hear the full version where I interviewed three people, please see my previous post.

[portfolio-liora]

I interviewed Psychology, Social Welfare, and Business Administration students on abusive relationships. It was interesting to hear their different perspectives on the subject matter; I obtained new insights just by conducting these interviews. Have a listen!

[portfolio-liora]

BREAKING POINTE by Jeu Lael Liora

My feet failed to uphold the weight of my body. On the left; peeled skin carved into my knuckles. On the right; tiny craters of blood welling on the tip of my toes. On both sides; wrapped tightly in glistening pink satin. 

“This is the cost of hard work,” Headmistress Yelena had said, when one of the girls in the ballet company twisted her ankle after doing one too many fouettes. “Skin bleeds until it gets thicker.”

The girl was given a day’s rest and had orders to come back with a healed ankle. She obeyed and came back doing more fouettes with a pale face and groans of agony. She stopped dancing after that.

As expected, Yelena called her the ballet company’s disgrace. She insisted that the girl was in her most critical moments; like a caterpillar fighting for its way out of the cocoon, but gave up on the last layer. 

I wondered how many unbroken layers I had left.

“Attack it! Attack it!” Yelena yelled with so much vigor, her spit flew to the floor. She smacked her palms together in a rhythmic beat, sending an echo through the studio. 

We had been rehearsing my solo which included one of the most difficult ballet moves in the world: hops on pointe. My Achilles heel threatened to break free from its hinges and crack in two. Once this session ended, I would take off my shoes to find my toenails covered in red. 

“You’re being sloppy, Alyeska.” A Russian accent drawled on her tongue. She shook her head, eyes shut, then snapped open. “Sloppy!”

The company was opening the season with Giselle, and it required all the luck and blessings in the world for me to be selected as Giselle herself. The audition was a brainless two minutes that had devoured two weeks of endless practice. And of course, they made us do the deathly Variation de Giselle. My performance was average, but apparently it was the “most tolerable”. Eight girls came home from the studio in tears, and I was the new villain in the company. They worked as hard as I did.

This small victory was my entrance to Yelena’s mentorship, which was a living nightmare.

“Stop.” 

The music died, cold silence entered. She wiped her face with a red palm and exhaled a gust of air. I waited for her next words.

It had been three minutes.

The pianist seemed unfazed and took this as an opportunity to check his phone. Yelena had resorted to standing in front of the window, looking out with both hands on her hips. I was stuck in the middle of the room, head bowed.

God, I wanted to rest so badly but I was scared to, and it was unclear if Yelena even allowed it. To collapse onto the ground would be a luxury. Unfortunately, my body was stuck in this hellish state; too pummeled to recover, yet not frail enough to give up. I didn’t know how long this confusing pause was going to last, but I knew that I couldn’t stand this pain anymore. 

So I danced and did the move once more. Then I did it again. And again, and again.

The little crevices of exposed flesh sent a sting through my legs. It was pure pain, yet I greeted it like an old friend. Pain had always lingered in this studio. It lied in Yelena’s screams and venomous comments. It lied in the other ballerina’s cold stares and “accidental” shoves. It lied in every blister, scab, and strained muscle in my body.

I kept on dancing without music, relying on the breathless counts spewing from my lips. My eyes were trained on my kicking foot which felt like it was going to detach and crumple on the floor. Five more, I reminded; five left until my body really gives out. Four, I braced myself for the fall. Three, two, one. 

The room echoed with a thump.

In the midst of my weeping, I felt the floor thud and dimple around me. With my head bowed, two tender hands fell on my shoulders. 

“Well done.”

Headmistress Yelena slipped her fingers beneath my chin and lifted it up. I saw her, but it felt like I was greeted by someone else; someone much kinder and gentler than the Yelena I had grown familiar to. She had a faint smile on her lips that seemed to spread to her eyes. We lingered in this position for a few seconds until she broke away, walking out of the room. 

“Well done”, she said. This was the first time I’d ever heard her say that. Those two words were simple, but they occupied a colossal portion in my internal tank of validation. 

So I spent the next two weeks exerting my energy and power like never before. I practiced at home and at the studio. I played the soundtrack to my solo as I washed dishes, walked to school, and did homework. I bruised my knuckles and feet until they were numb. Then I received more remarks of “weak” and “sloppy”. 

But I noticed something shift within Yelena. She gifted me new pointe shoes, made me an example for the other ballerinas, and moved my rehearsals to the studio upstairs. This shift didn’t only happen to her, it struck me as well. It was bizarre; for a few days, it felt like I was growing a fondness for her. Then I started to dance for her. I wanted to make her proud, I wanted to hear her say “well done” once more. 

“Feel it! More emotion!” I had been hearing these two sentences more frequently than I used to. Apparently I showed the wrong emotion: the performance needed to be light-pretty-graceful, not agony-pain-despair. I tried my hardest to land in my final position with grace. 

The music ended, and as usual, I welcomed Yelena’s new string of remarks. “Messy. Everything is messy.” she shook her head.

I scrambled to my feet, putting them together and lacing my hands behind my back. As I kept my eyes glued to the floor, trying to silence my heavy breaths, she approached me. “You are getting worse with each rehearsal,”

“I did so much for you and this is how you repay me.” then she left.

My strings had snapped. There was this ugly, dull pain pushing through my chest and my eyes began to water. So, my all wasn’t enough for her. But I understood, things were already complicated from the start. 

I wanted excellence, she wanted perfection.

She said she did so much for me. I believe that. She’d given me a tiny glimpse of heaven and daily torrents of hell. 

I could have just left. Quit the company and tell her she’s out of her mind-- a brainless tyrant. Join another company and prove her wrong. “This is how you repay me,” Yelena had said. I’ll make her say that a thousand times in her sleep. She’ll have to scream my name when I’m not in the studio. Believe me, I could do it. I could do it. I could--

“One more time,” Yelena entered the room. “I know you can do better.”

So I danced and came home with a twisted ankle.

[portfolio-liora]

My visualization of an excerpt from Daddy’s Doll, a poem by Ronald Doe. All pictures/drawings in this are not mine. 

To view the full poem, please click the link in the source of this post.

[portfolio-liora]

[portfolio-liora]

What made me choose abusive relationships for my issue?

As someone who loves music, I always look for deeper meanings in songs besides their catchy melodies and good vocals. In the search for my contemporary issue, I listened to my playlists without the intention of finding inspiration there. However, a certain song came on, and from the moment I heard the lyrics, I instantly knew: my issue is going to be abusive relationships. 

It’s quite funny if you ask which song did I listen to: it’s called Tolerate It by Taylor Swift. Now, before you laugh, I have to say that this song truly captures the heart-wrenching feeling of a woman who is stuck in a one-sided, restricting marriage. There’s a lyric she sings that struck a cord in me;

I made you my temple, my mural, my sky; now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life.

However, I do realize that the magnitude of abusive relationships goes way beyond a song. A few years ago, I witnessed a close friend of mine go through one. It broke my heart seeing how this relationship impacted her. When I helped her deal with the temperamental ex-boyfriend, I was surprised of how draining this process can be; I can’t imagine this being repeated time after time.

So, with this issue in mind, I sincerely hope that I can raise awareness to my viewers and tell those who may be going through a tough relationship that they’re not alone.

With love,

Liora