LEYFETTE, ariana grace

holland roland; 19; straight; local; sword swallower

Have you ever had that experience where you’ve already got one blade in your mouth and you’re being force out into the centre of the ring, and you know that the only reason you’re doing something so stupidly dangerous is because you’re so scared of heights you can’t so much as climb steps without panicking. No, I suppose you haven’t had such a feeling but, as you might have guessed, I’m part of a circus, well, Le Cirque De Rêves to be exact, I can assure you that it’s totally against my will my father, well let’s just he’s more than a little obsessed with the circus, Adrian says that he was never as bad as he has been since I was old enough to start performing, he says it’s because our mother died in an acrobatic accident. I’m told she fell from the top bar and ever since my dad has been obsessed with acrobatics. When Mum fell I was only three years old, Adrian was ten and just beginning to learn how to perform, Dad immediately changed his path from being a clown to acrobatics. He missed our mother so much that he wanted us to be exact copies of her with our performances.
Let us fast forward seven years, in that time I had discovered that I was so terrified of heights that I couldn’t so much as climb the first step to our caravan without hyperventilating, Adrian would always help me, he’d make excuses to our father why I’d not go inside, why I couldn’t go anywhere near the bars or ladders, but he didn’t seem to understand, and he tried time and time again to get me to take to acrobatics from the time of my tenth birthday. It took about two years of me hyperventilating and crying and not coping before Adrian finally persuaded him to let me perform something different. Unfortunately, that happened to be sword swallowing. I cannot express how much I detest it, all those eyes on you, watching your every move. Then there’s Dad, stood in the wings, glaring at me, his eyes burning into me to make sure I perform correctly. I wouldn’t dare do it wrong, he was often angry enough because he didn’t understand me and because he was so wrapped in grief over Mum’s death that it made him impatient and if we didn’t do as he wished when we performed, sometimes even violent. Still Adrian would protect me and, though it sounds cliché, I don’t think I could have had a better brother, he always managed to take our dad’s attention away from me whether he did it better or whether he played up and made things worse for himself, either way it made everything easier for me and I’d forever be grateful to him, even if I shan’t see him anymore.
Either way we lived life in the circus day in, day out, training, rehearsing, performing, it was monotonous and the longer I spent there, the more scared I got of heights, I couldn’t bear it but I had no choice but to stay, I wasn’t an adult, Dad would go to the police, they’d find me and they’d make me go home. Or rather back to the circus. I had to wait to escape, though it was unheard of for anyone to leave the circus, we were a huge number and, well, to be fair, we were good and people loved us, it just wasn’t the life for me.

When I was seventeen my dad had a heart attack and while he was ill I figured out a way to get out, but I was still a minor and, besides, I had no idea where I wanted to go. I came to the conclusion that when I found a town I liked as we’d always spend at least two weeks in each town; I’d stay where I was. I’d disappear and start a life in that town. So, I started to save.

Two years later we stopped in Newport that’s where we currently are. It’s where I want to be, it’s where I want to stay. It’s welcoming everyone’s so kind whether you’re a performer or not and I’m uncertain whether I’ve seen a more appeased crowd in any other town I’ve been to and, I have been to a [l]lot