Blue Flames (Yuzuru Hanyu)

But the darkness keeps chasing me

 While teaching Daniel (yep, his name was Daniel) I learned a lot of things. Daniel was 16, with 5 brothers and one pair of practically nonexistent parents. He was bi. His older sister who died tragically at age 21 in a car accident always went to the rink with him and skated with him. She was amazing at it, and he had always liked skating, growing even more attached after she passed. And he was not confident, not in any way shape or form. He taught me a few important things too. Patience is one of those things. For example, patience was needed when he couldn't figure out that you don't use your own foot as momentum when going into a sit spin (sigh) and doing second position on the ice and scooting along using the wall isn't a spread eagle, but I think teaching Daniel was good for me. It's useful to try to explain the moves that you're trying to accomplish in detail. It helps you get a better understanding of the sport.

That being said, teaching him was taking time away from my own practice, so I resorted to teaching Daniel right after school and staying until late in the night after he left. I practiced over and over, not leaving until every part of me was numb; mind and body. The same pattern. A jump sequence, spin, jump, across the rink, another element, jump, practice anything I felt I needed too, on and on again. The thing is, when you start to try to tame your passion, that thing becomes a chore. I had dark circles under my eyes and I wasn't getting homework done. I fell into the old routine again. Pushing and pushing. Not getting any sleep. Not eating. I isolated myself and snapped more easily. I'm not sure if I saw it coming or what, but I couldn't bring myself to be surprised when I fainted in science class and had to be hospitalized.

The teacher is going on and on about cell division and chromosomes and DNA and birth defects or what not. I'm too exhausted to even pretend like I'm paying attention. I think somethings wrong. everything is so so blurry.

I try to sit up, try to blink away the blackness at the edge of my vision

But as I sit here

                                             I feel

Fainter

                                                                    and the darkness

                                                                                                                                                   Is chasing me

And

  It

   Won't

    Go

     Away

                    ...And suddenly I'm...

                             

                                                                          ........Falling...............