Cadence

The first time I felt my stomach turn, I knew only what it felt like and could not verbalize the experiences I’ve had. Mixed up syntax and unfit words placed out of context. Misunderstood many a-times while thinking that I was understood in transition between chapters for all the details I weaved into a story. Misheard and misinterpreted I ran before I could walk, breaking rules that Strunk and White would most likely not approve of.

Making things sound good enough to keep eyes on me, ears on my cadence, forces of the unseen would sneak behind your chair wrapping arms softly around your ribs while it went unnoticed that your papers were being flipped and now blankly they sat on desks, there was nothing else to follow other than what was in the air.

All EYES ON ME

you could trust that what I was saying was true because at the end of every thought echoed an emotion you couldn’t ignore, it mirrored a part of you that you couldn’t bare to share. You emotionally tapped out and I tapped in. I could vocalize things you were too afraid to say to the room. You could talk numbers and charts about world issues and I could express the feelings reported on tv.

Somewhere on that realm I caught on and I tapped in

I became aware and delved a few wiki pages into the deep-end

Reading into yesterday’s History back to the present to predict tomorrow’s.

Cadence is a poetic piece calling the listener to tune into the in-betweenness of language, awareness, and the self. It is an honest reflection of deceiving one’s way into society — sliding past security doors of rules into the fitting of one’s own shoe.

This poem is of a bigger body of work where the writer recounts her journey of growing up in a Dominican-American home, in between Washington Heights n Harlem, English n Spanish, gullibility n awareness, finding a balance outside of the ‘common’.