The Six Year Cha-Cha-Cha | Teen Ink

The Six Year Cha-Cha-Cha

July 3, 2024
By Katherinehth SILVER, New City, New York
Katherinehth SILVER, New City, New York
7 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present." - Bil Keane


In Taiwan,
you run around the grass, sifting through community.
you run until you fall, and --
if you fall --
the community’s soft dirt-bed tightly clutches you.
Nature, our stage,
stages our dear
dramaturgy. 
Six years, I’ve spent performing,
dancing with neighbors, their friends, and their neighbors,
soon my friends of blood and bond.
Six years, I’ve spent performing for
my parents, grandparents, and their parents,
leaving their mark on our last name,
our community.
Drink more milk,
you’re next to lead,
drink more milk
may your bones breathe.
My grandma chides me.
So I drank until all the glasses were empty.


In America, we dance to a different tune,
the individual flourishes community like
whistling winds wrought from pursed lips.
The global styles flirt with rhyme and race,
which you run to be at the top of,
until you’re beaten, battered, and out of breath.
When you fall,
facing great pains that promise growth,
like dandelions sprouting from a shattered rock,
community is built, brick-by-brick, by individual thought,
each unique in our melting pot

But six years later, with love’s life larger and greater,
I’m still dancing, going “cha-cha-cha” six years later.


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