i matter.

My back aches as I board the bus, my bag weighing heavy with the mark left on my paper that I know my mother will scorn me for. She would be home by now, cooking a meal or tidying an already spotless counter, expecting me to arrive at any moment.

Instead, I get off the bus several stops too early, before the road diverges and takes me home. My friends wave me off, somewhat confused but not enough so to question why.

Around a bend, down an alleyway and up the stairs, there exists a perfect peaceful universe- a dance studio with ever-empty rooms and a manager who allows me to use said rooms for no charge as long as no one else asks to hire them. On the particularly hard days, this is my refuge, my haven from what lies outside.

My school bag is discarded outside the studio lest it serve as a reminder of what I am trying to escape from. The only necessary items are my phone, and a change of clothes which I am soon wearing, with my school uniform roughly shoved into my bag. I spare a brief moment to wave to the manager, alerting her to my presence – she responds with merely a nod and a smile – and quickly retreat into the spare corner room which I have now claimed as my own.

An old sound system is used in this room, one which I once struggled to operate but can now navigate with ease. Music erupts from the speakers, cascading across the room and embracing me with a warm sensation of ease and familiarity that comforts me instantly.

It is as if the music is not in my head but my veins, my muscles, my bones. My body moves of its own accord, matching the beat perfectly, hitting all the right notes.

For the mark on my paper that I worked tirelessly to perfect that tells me I don’t matter.

As the music builds, so do I, my moves exploding with some energy I didn’t know I still possessed.

For my mother, who will see that mark and throw it back in my face and tell me I don’t matter.

I explode across the room in leaps and bounds, and, at least inside my head, it looks elegant and graceful and beautiful.

For the words that follow me in the hallway that say I’m strange or broken and tell me I don’t matter.

The music abruptly softens as the song transitions to the bridge in preparation for the final build up. I pause then, my chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. My reflection stares back at me accusingly.

For the cruel being I see whenever I peer into a mirror who laughs at my failures and cackles at my insecurities and tells me I don’t matter.

The final chorus erupts across the speaker, and I dance until my head spins, until the room spins, until the entire planet spins off its axis. In the final bar, my ankle gives out, and my shoulder collides with the floor. Sharp pain fires through my entire body.

For the ache in my muscles- in my arms, in my legs, in my back- that tells me I am alive, and as long as I am alive, as long as I exist, I matter.