Robyn - Unmade

There are some things that defy definition. Divinity is one such thing; it changes with each person. For some, it is the euphoria of the moment you finally see the face of your newborn child. For others, it is a smiling stranger returning your wallet after running after you on a cold morning, or the softness of another person’s palm against yours as you lay entwined. It could be the bold patterning of cloud shadows against emerald fields and paddocks, or the smell of daphne flowers blooming. 

For Robyn, divinity was music. Not the reading of it, not even the playing of it - no, the moment he felt closest to heaven was when he was enveloped in a swirling mass of melody, his body swept along in the hurricane of sound. When he could feel his body spinning… moved by something not all himself, something godly. He was renowned for his dance recitals, often held in large layered halls filled with pearl-draped people. Within his heaven, Robyn’s hands would move like a swan’s neck, graceful and powerful; his legs would hold him at any elevation without the slightest hint of stress. Watching him dance was considered a privilege and an upper-class social requirement. He had managers, fans, designers, stalkers, lovers… but all of them fell secondary to his true love, his addiction. Divinity is a potent drug. For when you experience it once, the heart yearns for it over and over again. And Robyn with all his skill and beauty was a creature of indulgence. 

And so he would indulge, often over-booking himself until he was performing shows three times a day, seven days a week. Not  only did this lessen his prestige since his shows were very easy to attend now (and the rich, like a cat too many toys, is quick to shirk something that is in abundance) but it began to take its toll on him. His feet were swollen and bloody, the joints in  his arms were aching and cracking with regularity, sending shockwaves of sounds across the dance halls, loud pops of lightning beneath the Chopin. 

His fans diminished, his managers began looking at other opportunities, and his lovers cried for him to return to their lives. But even as his breaking body screamed and the voices of those around him rose in a cacophony, he would stand as still as dark marble, eyes trained on that brightly lit stage and its worn floor. The piano would strike up again in his ears. It did not matter if it were real or remembered. He would take the stage, walking out slowly, perfectly in his mind’s eye. The empty seats would fill entirely with a quiet, rapt audience, taking in every point of his toe or glide of his hand. And then as the music rose higher and higher, filling to his cathedral ceiling like water, he would lift from the ground and begin swirling, painlessly choking upon the notes of moonlight-soaked music. And there he would find bliss.

24/05/2022 - by Miles Foley
Image credit: Alexandre Nikolaïevitch Benois, Set Design for Swan Lake, 1945.