They are well-connected,
comfortable in each other’s skin.
For them
it is not a gathering of strangers
but a family reunion,
and I am like the distant cousin
5th removed
speaking a different dialect,
language sorely off.
I cannot find their rhythm —
I attempt
and attempt again,
but it is awkward beneath my skin.
Face and body,
unaccustomed to such masking,
surrenders in the resolution of
distance
and sanity,
settling into the familiar place of
Other.
The cacophony of words and laughter
lands in the brain that cannot filter
until spirit screams for the solace of space
and silence.
I sit on the curb beneath the cold October sky
that lovingly nips skin back to life
until body and brain are one again
and the Other,
the Other becomes
just the story
I once told myself.
© Sabrina Santa Clara, 2012