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Off to dance class I go

My mommy’s hand firmly grasped in my own

For a four-year-old isn’t capable of doing such things alone

I stare at myself in the mirror while I dance

Making silly faces at the video camera held by my mommy

And chewing on my skirt for some odd reason

And there’s really no reason

to be filming all these school plays when we go.

But mommy

insists and now we own

countless VHS’s of horse camp and Christmases and endless dance

recitals. And one Yo-Yo Ma concert recorded alone.

So I sit in my room alone

watching theses videos over and over again and my only reason

is that I’m a narcissist and like to watch my dance

class from when I was five because I think I was just so adorable. And here we go

again with the dancing to apparently  the only Britney Spears song the studio owns.

While proudly watches my daddy and mommy

Oh and look what mommy’s

filmed now. Me. Alone

in my own

room asleep face down on the floor for some reason.

Oh yes that’s just hilarious mother. Just go

away and stick to filming me dance

Ok so maybe she did. Dance

apparently was a popular subject for mommy

to record. And there I am, going

at it again alone

in our new dining room, dancing to the nutcracker in summer for some reason.

And here comes the crying as I slip and fall to the floor. I really own

too many leotards and tutus. But what a great thing to own.

Especially when you won’t stop forcing your mother to film you dance

And the only reason

She does is that she’s your mommy.

But when I’m alone,

I think to myself that I really was the best dancer of all the kids that go

to my dance class. And I watch my own family’s Christmases

for no reason but to sit alone through all the videos and be nostalgic.

And to remind myself to apologize to my mommy for having to go through all those tantrums.

My sestina seemed like a difficult process at first but once I got the first stanza together, the rest flowed pretty smoothly. It was actually pretty fun to do the rest because it was like a puzzle to try and fit the rest of the words into a believable context. Also I had just gone home one day and watched pretty much all of my home movies from when I was around 4-6 aged and I felt like writing about it.