I'm starting my new job on Monday, and I'm feeling a little bit of what Cisneros' narrator Rachel describes, that feeling of being out of place or not quite what everyone says you are or what you're supposed to be. I think all of us at times can empathize with what it feels like to be eleven.
You can find the full text of Sandra Cisneros' story here.
My "found poem" version of the story is below.
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Found Poem from "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros
What they don't understand
what they never tell you
is
when you're eleven
you're also
ten
nine
eightsevensixfivefourthreetwoone.
You expect to feel eleven
but you don't
you're still ten
and you are--
underneath.
You grow old like
an onion
the rings inside a tree trunk
little wooden dolls that fit
one inside the other
each year inside the next.
You don't feel eleven.
Not right away.
It takes days,
weeks,
months,
before you say
"Eleven"
when they ask you.
Today I'm
eleventtennineeightsevensixfivefourthreetwoone.
I wish I was one hundred and two.
I wish I was anything but
(eleven)
because I want
today to be far away
far away like a runaway balloon
like a tiny
O
in the sky.
You have to close your eyes to see it.
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