Rubatosisroo-bah-toh-sis

n. The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat, whose tenuous muscular throbbing feels less like a metronome than a nervous ditty your heart is tapping to itself, as if to casually remind the outside world, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. In music, tempo rubato, "stolen time," is a slight speeding up and slowing down of the tempo of a piece, borrowing time from one measure then paying it back later.