An Ode To The Dust
Which felt, back then, like it could have been older than all of us. Laid atop some makeshift stage, or bowed floor, in a warehouse or basement from a time before we knew how to speak or move. Made anew by some boot stomping down on wood, or some back pushed up against the wall and now, hanging vulnerable in a beam of moonlight, small stars from another age. Back then, I most loved thinking about the dance as a kind of game. A clearing of the air. Kicking up a tornado of dust and then letting it fall somewhere else. There’s a choreography to it all. My pal Chris insisted that there needed to be something the dancer is acting in opposition to—even if the opposition is only in their head. There has to be something they want gone, or something they want to keep away. Dodge the crowdkillers if you can, unless you and your pals decide to crowdkill each other, which, in a small enough room, is a type of intimacy: I am throwing myself into you because I know we will both survive it. Amidst all of the two-stepping and windmilling, there is a moment in time where I want to confirm that you will throw yourself towards me as I throw myself towards you, and then, through our collision, we make new and momentary dust. I remember, at some show in someone’s family barn on the outskirts of Ohio, it was 3am when the sixth band of the night was just getting into a groove and, at that hour, all I was capable of doing was half-heartedly picking up pennies, sweeping at the ground in time with the drums. But someone, with far more energy than I had and far less spatial awareness, caught me with a spin kick, unintentionally, and I remember, in a moment, on the ground, looking up and seeing the dust that had flown up upon my body’s falling. How it floated. Almost seeking an escape into the night air, and I am sure I did not actually think or say this then, but for the sake of this story, I will say that I did, I did in fact think, for a moment, with a mouth full of blood at least there is evidence of my being here.
Yesterday, I swung my arms in a room with no one else. There was no music. I was first trying to capture a fly, and then, having given up on that, I was trying to remove it from my direct vicinity. And I found myself laughing at the motion, as I caught the reflection of it in a distant mirror. Me, windmilling one arm, and then two, and then laughing on the couch while the fly still zipped around my head, relentlessly. I understand it. You all show up even when I have told myself you are gone forever. We will find a way to keep dancing together.
Hanif Abdurraqib is a writer from the east side of Columbus, Ohio.