I No Longer Dance reveals an athlete's devastating physical and emotional struggle of enduring a painful and crippling disease. The author, Alice Randall Cocca, suffered from degenerative disc disease, D. D. D., for almost 10 years before her untimely death. D. D. D. robbed her of the passion, "the absolute fire and zest", she once had for living. Her poetry lays bare the incessant pain and ravaging emotional loss that changed her life drastically. This is her story. Her voice speaks to us on paper. As we turn the pages, we, too, "feel the pain, the severity of her tears, the agony of her walk, the pain that never went away." "So here I am Crying Dying in pain My body My soul BLEEDS Hear my spine cry