the breaking pointe

Coming out of her pointe class, feet shredded to nothing but skin and blood, she untied the ribbons to her pointe shoes, and removed the lambswool that was soaked with blood and sweat to survey the damage. There, on top of her smallest toe, was a blister that had popped and bled. That was the third one this month alone, and it was time for new shoes. In the meantime, she would have to wrap it or use jelly toes before the next class to keep it from breaking open. Instead, she just placed bandages on them, then slipped her feet into her new ballet flats by Bloch, the same company that made her amazing Synergy pointe shoes that made balancing en pointe a lot easier than any of the Capezios or Gambas ever did, and being the new pointe shoes that we were, she decided that she had to break us.

The next day, we were subjected to all the usual tortures that nearly all pointe shoes go through. First, she tried us on, marked where she thought the elastic should go, pinned it, and then hand-stitched it into place. After doing that, she folded down the heel of the shoe, drew a line, placed the ribbons on that line, and sewed them on us. This went on until every ribbon and piece of elastic was in its right place.

Then the real fun began. She grabbed us, put us on, and bent the place in the shoe just in front of her heel until the shank yielded to the pressure of her foot and stayed in the proper place, forming a perfect arch. After that, she took us, beat us on the ground, sending earsplitting shocks into the air that echoed throughout the room. She did this for ten entire minutes until the sounds softened. After that, she took a file and scraped the bottom of the sole to create a better grip out of the smooth leather. Finally, she applied clear nail polish to the ends of the ribbons to prevent fraying, and we were allowed to sit inside her dance bag, beaten, broken, and submissive.