COGNIZANCE

I saw him sitting in
the second row, five seats from
the aisle, with those
luscious locks of brown
hair falling loosely over his
eyes, smiling as he chatted
with his friend sitting beside him;
those dimples – a canyon of
ecstasy.
And me? He doesn’t know my name.
he doesn’t even know I exist.
Tomorrow would be three years
of working together
in the same office, a paralegal
he dismissed without even a
glance.
The butterflies in my stomach
snapped me back to reality
as I heard my name being
announced as the next performer
at the Annual Meet of the
Litigators of Fort Prowell.
This is it
I walk onto stage as the sweet
melodies of my favorite
song fill the auditorium,
and I submit myself to
the music. Slowly and steadily,
my nervousness breaks through
and I find myself forgetting
the hundred eyes watching me.
Dance is second nature to me.
It is who I am, it is who I want to be.
I twirl and whirl and hold my
pirouette and I can feel the adrenaline
rush through my veins as I
feel that familiar exhilaration
driving every molecule in my body.
I dedicate this stance to him
As I pour out my emotion
Through my body in the form of
Jumps and splits and I feel
My heart pumping and the music
Getting louder and faster
and as suddenly as I had started
I stop, with the tunes ebbing
and the searing heat of the
white spotlight focused solely on me.
I can hear a thunderous round
of applause and I look up
beaming, confident, happy.
And there he stands tall,
unable to control himself from
whistling and clapping sincerely.
Our eyes lock and three years of
ignorance fade away, three years
of a desperate crush turn to something
more, we’ve spoken a whole lot
without the need for syllables or
speech, and I see him making his
way backstage as I exit, too.