death my love

Death my love, keep close

with your arms open and ready. 

Yours is the softest, most comforting and capable embrace, 

and i’m raging. 

Whisper to me your lullaby; 

that you’ll catch me like a tide 

of all the love i have ever known, 

and carry me home. 

Reassure me that there is nothing more graceful 

than throwing myself open,  

saying make me whole. I am yours, 

take me in, make us one, I give in.

i give out.

I release. 

Remind me there is nothing more perfect. 

Death my love, 

in this you give me the strength to risk, 

and to love, 

to feel so deeply and forgive so freely, 

and be open to this world in rawness and vulnerability. 

No matter how much I hurt, 

how hot I burn, 

or how sudden my fall, 

I know that when my life ends, 

you’ll hold your arms steady,

and catch me.

ghost

i floated, I wafted through you, i paused...
then carried on my way.
I made my way through others' selves
I never forgot.
those others' selves i never forgot
and how they weren't like you.
they were cloudy, thick exhausting.
wore me down to muddy hues.
I turned black, and black i was.
heavy stained the shadows of my eyes.
I did feel ugly, and i felt sad.
because once i felt something better.
I once compared it to the rest
and then the rest was less than okay.
I fell heavy because I once felt you.
~ Chelsea

discarded

Dusty drawl in southern slander

Quiet strained to understand her

Tired eyes let free her story

Stripped bare of their childhood glory

Heavy eyes, dull grey reflections

Amplified stained imperfections

Hidden between beaten hands

Scrubbed, bleached, scarred and tender hands

Tearful in her struggle, she

Clasps the wisps of cherished strands

and bows          shamelessly

Finally.

To life itself

Breathed into lungs

Revived her health

A tiny fleck of spirited stealth

Behind the scars, beyond the fears

A dusty drawl in southern slander

Dazed I strained to understand her

spoke seven words...

“...it’s like I seen my momma again”

My heart shattered like the life within her

I embraced that child and never left her
~Chelsea

Watermarked

There once was a boy who didn't speak. He didn't cry, and he didn't yell. But he smiled like he knew. He smiled like he understood. He left home one night and many nights to wander and explore. He had no fear, and he had no cares. This was 3046 years ago. I remember still, the vibrations of his eyes like they sang untold words to my heart. He wore a necklace. Only a necklace when he explored. It was his mother and his father dead and gone. It was a necklace left around his neck to mark from where he'd come. He spoke with body and eyes and love to the animals he met. They shared with him the secrets of a world that any and every human could explore. And explore is to search, but explore isn't to find, and explore isn't to understand. Explore isn't to have siblings of the natural beauty around you.

He passed away young, he floated home peacefully in a river as a sunday sun rised above him. they cried. the animals. all of them cried. The humans wouldn't speak his name, but the animals screamed it proudly. They cremated his body that night and the ashes blew away with the wind.

there was one small thing where his throat had been...

a diamond.

So I wear it around my neck today, in search for a life he lived.

Once in a while I become enchanted when I hear the forest stir.

Once in a while...

when the night gets late and the humans are asleep and quiet.
~Chelsea

the lost ones

 

I was looking through my pictures, and realized these three never made it up for some reason! So here they are, the lost collection. One is sitting at home, one is in my girlfriend's room, and the last was a gift to a fellow dancer, and her new baby.

the remnants of a beautiful dance

I am drained of everything I was. Pulled out, forced out, drawn to the surface, beaten and dissected. I did it to myself. I tore out what was not ripe and ready. I have nearly nothing left. I am raw and open and so so susceptible to every emotion, feeling, and touch that I might die in the overwhelming flow of it all. I think I love everyone to the same depth that I love my girl. I think I can’t eat or breathe for the feeling of my organs moving inside of me. I hate so deeply and so entirely that it will surely hurt me soon. I cry for love, I cry for loss, I cry for art, and emotion, and loneliness, and the cotton candy I’m eating which is turning my mouth blue. I might strip my bedroom walls of everything because the memories are too intense. I am a mess.

I love my dancers, and every ounce of effort and care they’ve put into my dance. I’m in love with the story they tell, and the way they tell it. That story has a life, has a meaning, and has a death lock on me. It won’t let go. It hangs from my heart, heavy and used. I want the dance back. I want it to live again. But so many little parts of the story have gotten lost in the dance anyhow. No audience could possibly know the gravity of it all. No dancer could know the gravity of it all when I am only experiencing it now.

Videotaped, I can watch it now, and a million times over. I can experience the exact movements, facial expressions, brilliant moments and adrenalin etched along the recording. I can move with the images, remember through the images, but the images are a sad imitation of the thing that was.

I wasn’t ready to create that piece. I was in a dark and uncreative place in my life, but I forced myself to feel and to move when my soul was not ready. It has never been so difficult to create dance, but I pulled my soul along by a string, like a rag doll, and I made it stand, and I made it talk, and I demanded strength from it, and I think that tore it apart. My soul hangs from my heart. Utterly it is so, torn apart.

 Lol now that I got all that out, I feel silly. I guess I’m just thinking of what people will think when they go to read it, and maybe I shouldn’t think about that. Maybe you won’t think I’m silly and a dramatic. I hope you don’t, because creating is a powerful thing... I don’t know if I’m alone in feeling this way, hopefully I’m not. I’m just a human. Just a human, looking to make pretty and romantic things. I’m empty now, lol and utterly so. :P

Funeral of a Kinder Spirit

 

"Enter my palms, and you slip through them just the same. I love you too deeply to protect you, or set you free. But in my gentle nature, I know it's not my say. Briefly, I am warm arms to rest within, before the winds carry you down..." ~ Chelsea Papps

This is my creation for my third year choreography class at York University. The dancers are Aria Evans, Taylor General, Niko Markakis, and Emily Downs. I never could have found better dancers than these. They were dedicated, so so talented, brave. And I don't think they know it, and I never got my head around it until recently, is that this piece is my heart and soul. it is my creativity, and everything that is me. It is so shocking to see yourself in others, and i saw myself in them. everything pure and honest in me, they laid out on the stage. It breaks my heart to see this end. I feel a little empty, a little drained. All i can wish is that my dancers enjoyed the experience, and that they know that through this, i have learned from them. They are four beautiful humans i will never forget. so..... 

this dance is dedicated to them. to freedom, little kinders and fledgling feathers. Remember, everything and nothing exists, this must be believed. Never stop searching, no conclusion is ever sufficient, and be sure to live. xox 

Music: Fletta by Bjork and Antony and the Johnsons