Poem by Cher Alex
Fear is a tricky dancer manifesting as the rhythm of the inter-nation. It is the ultimate interloper of our times. Sometimes, it is evidenced by the vexatious sounds of frantic squirrels trapped within the plaster of my thin bedroom walls on dank wintry nights, brown, bewildered, tent-making bats, rabidly stranded in my stuffy ceiling or in the wanton gaze of the dusty, black crows which fall unwittingly, time after time down the brick-red chimney of my childhood home like wretched, drunken sailors mumbling, stumbling, struggling to feel the ground beneath shaky feet. I hear it in the high-pitched voice of the high-maintenance, light complected woman occupying a busy street. You know, the one who can’t seem to maintain eye contact with me for more than four or five seconds without suppressing a giggle or a frown. I smell it in the unbecoming scent of unwashed bodies wafting insidiously among sad, disoriented people. I feel it in the pit of my upset stomach following the taste of unsolicited proposals from ruthlessly powerful energy vampires while in the panicked throes of hypervigilance around suspected potential shooters. All the while, the futility of life in suspension abounds within the garishly colored houseless camps as nameless victims secure eventual homes on the hangman’s scroll. A pendulous toll on the tender soul, indeed. But every once in a purple moon I transport myself to a place where I can observe turquoise blue ocean waves swell like gliding, pirouetting spirits beneath cloudless skies. And do you hear my upturned palms? They make the sweetest sounds as they graciously receive this ineffable reprieve.
Cheryl Atim Alexander is an Afro-Euro woman primarily of Nigerian, Greek, and British descent. Currently an MFA student, her writing material emanates from lived, professional, and educational experiences. She has been published in Decolonial Passage, Wilderness House Literary Review, and Written Tales Magazine.
