Confidence
You sit in a table in the far corner of a small café, watching the makeshift stage with its too-bright lights as each performer comes and goes. Some pluck the strings of guitars so softly that you couldn’t tell where the music ended and the wind began; some strummed lighthearted tunes with ukuleles and accompanying cajons, while some came with no instruments at all. They came with nothing but their words and a desire to be heard. They are the poets – the dreamers of dreams.
I too, could be a dreamer of dreams, you can’t help but think over and over after each performance. But these thoughts are quickly followed by the echoing memory of your own stuttering voice ringing in your ears, so you remain quietly seated, absorbing every poem, every phrase, every word and every vowel, drinking in the sound of soul and bravado resonating across the café’s walls.
They call for last-minute performers.
I too, can be a dreamer of dreams. You hear your stuttering once more but this time, it’s drowned out by the sound of your rapidly beating heart – the adrenaline coursing through your veins. You make your way to the stage, only half-aware of what you’re doing until you’re standing in front of the microphone with the bright lights directed at you as you take a deep breath, and before thinking twice, begin.
The words come as naturally as the stutter once did – pouring in unstoppable torrents of emotion. Metaphors enter with great blazing trumpets as the adrenaline coursing through your veins transform into golden ichor. Breath becomes an arrow flying in the wind and hands paint stories of everything and nothing. You speak until each metaphor has been emphasized, each story told and each breath freed into the wind. You speak until there are no more words left to speak and then you simply stand, basking in too-bright lights.
And take a bow.
© C. Delvo