the waltz requires a dynamic—a leader and a follower.
you only intended to watch, far too nervous in your own skills to participate. you’d already found yourself transfixed as other couples take turns about the room. at the beginning of the song, your eyes twinkled with such clarity.
now, those eyes are a little hazy. you’re getting a little lost in it all.
someone steps to your side and makes idle conversation with such a pleasant voice. commenting on the music, the footsteps, the rhythm, the way skirts and bodies turn round, and round…
they must have been charming, because when the stranger asked for a dance, open hand on offer, you accepted. you wouldn’t normally be willing to put yourself on display, right?
moving your bodies into the dance’s frame felt so natural for the first time. it melted any reluctance you might have had. even the tension when holding your arms aloft—it’s absent now, as if they’re buoyant in the most comfortable, warm waters…
and like water, you ripple in response to their movement.
when they step forward, you rock back. your body knows how to be led. you sink into steps that are so familiar, you don’t need to think about the steps.
you don’t need to think at all.
you’re drawn forward. you drift a leg to the side, then glide the other to meet it. and again—
back, side, together. one, two, three. forward, side, together. one, two, three.
what’s left of you slips between the cracks of the dance’s cadence. you are not yourself, you are an extension of who chose you, guided without resistance. devoid of it, really. emptied of it.
you’re merely their dancing doll.
your eyes never find purchase on the audience gathering. your eyes never find purchase on anything in the constant swirl of colors and shapes. all you know are the hands that hold and guide you, the weightlessness of your body, your breaths falling in time—
it’s a shame it’ll all be a blur, but you will be praised.
and they’ll all say you followed beautifully.