A Ballerina's Warning Poem by Lucy Creemer

When I was four my dad signed me up for ballet lessons
And I was a ballerina until i was 21
My only advice for people going in to ballet is don't
You will quickly learn that everyone at that ballet bar is replaceable
Every one is replaceable which is something I first heard on dance moms but I knew long before that
See somethings you can't not know after dancing ballet for 17 years
Now I'm not pretending to be a ballet expert I only danced prima professionally four times before I was replaced
But I do want to give you a word of warning
Even if you don't want to listen
Because I was you
A bright eyed bun head
And if someone told me not cover my feet with glue I would have laughed
How else will I keep my toes from breaking while I dance? I'd say
I knew girls who would attack their feet with ice and glue and bandages and scissors and razorblades before a performance
We literally put blood sweat and tear into ballet and all we got were some fun stories and broken feet
We trained for seven hours a day at least
We went through so many pointe shoes
A professional ballerina can go through more than 100 pairs of pointe shoes in one ballet season I didn't know that
And every time I threw a shoe away I threw away a little part of myself
But I didn't matter because everything is replaceable
I got a spot in the New York Ballet Company as a replacement for a girl whose hip snapped
Hip injuries are the most common ballet related injury there's a reason snapping hip syndrome is nicknamed dancers hip
But I didn't think of that I was glad to be a replacement I wasn't glad when I was replaced
I remember it vividly it was my fourth timedancing for Odette in swan lake
The old Odette broke four of her toesshe was in so much pain but she didn't cry she stayed calm she keep on dancing tell the show was over and when she finally hobbled of stage she calmly said that she heard her toes break and the company doctors confirmed her fears and told her that she would probably have to sit out for the rest of the season then she cried
But everyone is replaceable
I took her spot and after a 10 hour rehearsal my right leg felt really bad and so I went to see the company doctor and I asked him if it was a good idea for me to dance that night and he said
Dance
Dance through the pain
Dance
The show must go on
Dance
You'll be fine it's just aminor stress fracture it could be a lot worse you can still dance
And so I danced
Because everyone is replaceable and I didn't want to be replaced
And when I did my grand jeté towards the end of act one I landed on my foot and I must have landed on it wrong because I felt pain pain like I'd never experienced before
And I wanted to shoutout but a ballerina is silent
Silence is the first rule of ballet
Perfection is the second rule and if you break these rules you'll learn that everyone is replaceable
I tried to gracefully exit but I passed out due to the pain
And they rushed me of the stage
My replacement was already in the wings waiting because I wasn't a prima ballerina I was just a replaceable girl
I woke up in the New York general hospital
I was still dressed like a swan
The doctor started explaining what had happened
I heard him say
Tear in the ACL
Stress fracture
Ruptured Achilles Tendon
But I didn't understand what that meant
I heard him say
You will probably never dance again
I'm not even allowed to walk with my right leg for nine months at the least
I tell him what the company doctor said
He says that I shouldn't have danced that night
But he doesn't understand ballet
He doesn't understand me
He doesn't understand that I've seen girls dance with broken bones
He doesn't understand the pressure to be prefect in an activity this competitive where everyone is replaceable
And yeah I probably shouldn't have danced with a stress fracture even if it was minor
But I've seen girls dance with worse and be fine
I've seen girls cut there feet to drain blood so they could fit into shoes
I've seen primas in wheelchairs before they turned thirty
And maybe these things should have made me be afraid but I was more afraid of being replaced than breaking
So I danced until I broke
Now I'm broken and they replaced me the second I fell
My dad came to visit me in the hospital he was reading about dance injuries off his phone the entire time
He said that over 50 percent of ballet dancers suffered a serious injury
And back then I would have loved to be on the other side of that number
But you never understand how bad the storm is until it's passed
Once you're out of the whirlwind then you began to see everything
That maybe the broken bones that were so normal shouldn't have been
That chasing perfection is dangerous but necessary because as a ballerina you have to be perfect or you'll be replaced
My dad recently took me to see a ballet and i thought i cry but i didn't
I watched the ballets illusion of perfection and new what happened behind the scenes and I wanted to tell the girls dancing on stage that they didn't have to be perfect they didn't have tobreakorbleed
I would clap anyways whether they reached the illusion of perfection or not