YRKB
11-30-2011, 07:58 PM
Her housekeeper called at 6.27 in the morning to tell me. She’d rung the police, persistently unable to open the bedroom door more than a crack, and why her heart and taken to hammering in that initial few seconds was later confirmed.
Serena was the dead weight slumped behind it. Body bowled in under the effects of the overdose, soiled by meek vomit.
I identified her a few hours later. Her mum couldn’t.
That toxic white that only suits the terminally sick, lips chafed grey – dark, deep set rings under her eyes. I remember the shock of her black hair, wet clumps straddling the bone structure, strands in cracked lines creeping across her forehead.
Yeah, it was her, but only the science.
The afternoon before she’d been in the rehearsal studios, sweat illuminating an amber complexion. She’d had layers of black extensions framing her slick sequence of movements to perfection. Serena was focused, consumed entirely in the arch and buck of the movements – centered in a spiral web of perspiring male dancers.
Only afterwards did she meet my eyes –chest heaving, breath caught in her throat. I smiled, and she blinked back a response, exhausted. Like, grateful. Content.
And I felt confident.
We’d argued a little bit about the costumes, after everything about the song lyrics – and then parts of the routine. Serena said she wanted to pull back a little. I just thought she needed reassurance, her image was in a big transgression –she was daunted.
Then it was the crying now and again. Kind of spontaneous. These short, muted sobs that disappeared with a fresh understanding when I took her aside from everybody. She got mixed up quickly, but nothing anyone suggested was more than she could pull off – fundamentally she understood that.
Serena watched the raw footage I’d recorded, saw how it all came together for her. There was an appeal about her she couldn’t have imagined – beyond even what I’d really worked up in my head. And I was looking across the laptop it was playing from to her face all time. It was like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
So I just don’t understand what changed.
We had it.
Copyright Yafeu-Khamisi Rodway-Brown
Serena was the dead weight slumped behind it. Body bowled in under the effects of the overdose, soiled by meek vomit.
I identified her a few hours later. Her mum couldn’t.
That toxic white that only suits the terminally sick, lips chafed grey – dark, deep set rings under her eyes. I remember the shock of her black hair, wet clumps straddling the bone structure, strands in cracked lines creeping across her forehead.
Yeah, it was her, but only the science.
The afternoon before she’d been in the rehearsal studios, sweat illuminating an amber complexion. She’d had layers of black extensions framing her slick sequence of movements to perfection. Serena was focused, consumed entirely in the arch and buck of the movements – centered in a spiral web of perspiring male dancers.
Only afterwards did she meet my eyes –chest heaving, breath caught in her throat. I smiled, and she blinked back a response, exhausted. Like, grateful. Content.
And I felt confident.
We’d argued a little bit about the costumes, after everything about the song lyrics – and then parts of the routine. Serena said she wanted to pull back a little. I just thought she needed reassurance, her image was in a big transgression –she was daunted.
Then it was the crying now and again. Kind of spontaneous. These short, muted sobs that disappeared with a fresh understanding when I took her aside from everybody. She got mixed up quickly, but nothing anyone suggested was more than she could pull off – fundamentally she understood that.
Serena watched the raw footage I’d recorded, saw how it all came together for her. There was an appeal about her she couldn’t have imagined – beyond even what I’d really worked up in my head. And I was looking across the laptop it was playing from to her face all time. It was like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
So I just don’t understand what changed.
We had it.
Copyright Yafeu-Khamisi Rodway-Brown