Katrina

I wasn't kidding when I said

I eat men like you for breakfast.

You should've heeded that warning last night--

because now, as you are tumbling

through the waves of my stomach acid,

you realize just how right I was.

I am not just a play thing or

a gentle little girl.

It is not a coy joke

when I whisper calmly in your ear:

"Do not fall in love with me unless you are prepared for war."

I am a walking earthquake,

bringing down cities

with nothing more than a gentle sigh.

I am the flood that finds you,

and after me, there is nothing left.

In your vain attempt to dry off

and find anything of value,

you will find only choked up crops

and bloated living room furniture.

I am tornado,

tearing everyone around me apart

after they've come in contact with me.

If you're strong, you hold on

while the weak go flying

across fields and dreams.

There is hardly a reason to chase after me

if you are not willing to swing a lasso of barbed wire,

spur your horse until you both bleed,

or live in longing of developing

callouses along your rope burned fingers.

I am burning wave of fire.

Shield of cannonball

and falling crash of firework

in a shower of confetti and acid rain.

I am grindstone,

crushing noses and hopes

directly into bread crumbs

--every ounce of which

waiting to be consumed

on a slab of ashwood

dripping in boxing glove blood.

I am parafin,

sucking air out of lungs

to preserve only the most perfect notions of human,

counting the months lost to stillness.

It is only in the outburst of violence

that I may find peace.

I am not looking for you to come

and bridal my tempest, merely hoping

that you can meet my shock of lightning streaking across the sky

with your own clap of earth trembling thunder.

So you must understand my disappointment

when I managed to unhinge my jaw

and snake-swallow you entirely with such ease

that I barely thought twice

about what bones might get stuck in my gut.

You were all talk with no punch,

all tomato juice and not a slight tickle of bloody.

I had hoped for anything but a lamb to take to slaughter

even as you wrapped the leash around you own neck

without my prompting.

You are cornflakes, boy.

You had no idea that this battle would take your legs,

that I would sink your eyes into star-filled oceans

and you could never look at other women without seeing me.

I will ruin you.

You will find my face in every turn,

my name ringing past your throat,

you will follow me blindly,

haunting yourself with the memory of my lips.

Originally performed on 3/28/11

Originally written on 7/26/2010

Endlessly Edited.

Practical Magic

There is a witch living in my neighborhood.

I don't know the house she lives in

but I can hear her chanting to the full moon;

casting spells into the darkness.

Perhaps the witch is the cat lady

living down the street,

surrounding herself with claws

and inviting ivy onto her gables.

But she keeps her words to herself,

and only stares blankly out to the street.

Maybe she's my next door neighbor,

complaining of sleepless nights

as she fetches her mail

in her pink fuzzy slippers every morning.

Does she lose her sleep

by finding herself in the backyard

muttering pagan rituals under the stars?

But the witch's voice

is not coated in catnip and smoke,

she does not sound like sleep deprivation,

only velvet,

pillow murmurs and cool comforter cloud dreams.

Sometimes she whispers in my window,

wisdom leaking through the screen,

saying things like,

"Do your homework, girly."

And I know she's right,

but still I sit at my desk,

night after night,

drawing hearts

around the names of each my beloveds.

The first time she did this,

I was so startled,

I ripped the paper in half!

And I knew in that moment,

that boy would never be the same.

Young girls are given chains and leashes

without knowing how to use them.

And even my tortured ignorant mouth has uttered the words "Boys are puppies that need to be trained."

But we need to learn to soften the whipcrack of our tongues and loosen the collar around their necks.

Young men's hearts are such fragile things:

made of

china,

porcelain,

venetian glass.

waiting to be broken

--asking to be broken.

But I can't help but wonder,

who at such a young age

asks for that kind of pain?

Having been wrapped in poison arms

and my ears licked by silver tongues,

I am no stranger

to the incidental invasion

of a trickster practicing his sport.

She knows that we all have tricks of our own trade,

waiting to test them out on any innocent passing our front door.

We're hoping if we shoot the right game that they'll stay for dinner.

There have been countless nights that I have spent

coughing my own ceramic beat up into someone else's hands,

knowing down to my bones

that the only protection for it

would be solitude.

I have been the duct tape girl,

trying to piece together each eggshell frame,

to put those damn horses and men to shame,

even when those around me insist I am just a peasant.

Still, I've tried to untangle those mangled clockwork pulses

without understanding I am wearing the same uniform

as the ones that carry a cat and nine tails

and have cramped cage waiting in their basement.

Spinning a cradle to trap those who have been hurt

makes for a lazy hunter

and simply re-opens any poorly sealed wounds.

Instead, I turn to the witch's words,

insisting that weaving a hammock for broken bones to heal

might leave enough space to quell the bared teeth.

Some nights, I whisper back to her,

"Does this make my ass look fat?"

But mostly questions about the heavens

and the chatter of animals and spirits.

She always answers with compassion,

icing bruises and patching up misunderstanding.

I asked her once,

after I heard her final prayer

why she prays to the moon

if the man in there

looks so sad

and she answered,

"You would be sad too

if embracing your closest companion

would kill millions."

Originally performed on 3/28/11

Originally written on 2/24/2011

Originally slammed on....

The Highway

There's an accident on this highway every two miles. There's a mournful but light song playing on the radio and a matching smile on your face as we pass each one. The flames licking the sky and the frantic eyes searching the road give you a sick satisfaction. As if you're the one that caused them.

This is an everyday event as we head toward our not-so-final destination. The reflection in your glasses blocks out any understanding someone might reach. You shine back a cruel, malicious smirk carved into your mouth as you push your foot down on the gas pedal and switch lanes. I don't even try to look into your eyes anymore.

There's a disaster on every exit this time of year. you signal to the fast lane as if we were headed somewhere important and cut off the faster car behind us. The sun is blasting us with dying rays from behind the trees making a blurry sunset rainbow in the clouds. Your wheels hit the pavement with such speed the dashes become complete lines and I wonder if I'm just being overexposed.

With your hands locked onto the wheel, you murmur for me to turn up the music--it's your favorite song. I lean foward against the wind and bitterly turn the dial. I glare at you with your simple, free smile. I look at the cracks on the windows and remember the day you knocked them out because you were going to live in some desperately wonderful place. I wonder if you'll ever leave the state.


Originally performed for the slam on 3/10/11

Originally written on 7/10/05

We slept side by side and woke up in a heart shape. My spine curved to accommodate the emptiness you could fill and your forehead arched to reach mine. With our knees touching and our chests sighing, someone watched over us and laughed inwardly. There was a whisper in my ear and I mistook it for an unconditional understanding of where I would always be. If it wasn't a definition left to the dreams that happen in the satellite hour of consciousness, I might not have to look upon that moment with such delicate longing. There was no backward or forward in time---only the complete conglomerate of some essence of one magic fitting perfectly into another, no desperation or wild rallying; just soft, light, content. The happiness of half open eyelids in an unbelievable, unremarkable miracle.

I used to struggle to tell dreams. The struggle to explain with painstakingly accurate detail the occurrences from another realm used to take me all day. with time, I have learned that my dreams were more fascinating to me as I saw them than to anyone trying to paint their own picture with my words. I slowly learned that the message to be found was not within the placement of the walls but the broadness of your shoulders. No, wait, that's not right, it can't be. I learned how to keep dream and sleep separate---where were we? Ah yes, my chronic obsession with talking about my intimate adventures of feathery dreams. So I rode a roller coaster right off the tracks and into the sunset where I found the dragons living in the glory of the blazing sun. (Your breath became the fire in my gut and the sleeplessness in my lungs.)

I was traveling over the snow and ice, over the highway separating us from realities and time. It wasn't a spark that came from your hand as it grazed my cheek but a fresh tenderness. I felt a renewed wordless something and it spread from your fingertips to my depths. There was an unimaginably large grin on our faces that started in my eyes and spread to your feet. (Or was it the other way around?) My eyelids wrenched my sight back to the road and then suddenly I was awake. I heard a far away, familiar voice scolding you and I wiggled my toes remembering the sensation of your touch without any contact.

Laying in bed and continually recalling the memory you traced into my skin will not bring me closer to any conclusion. I've grown older in such a small amount of time, all I have to do is close my eyes and I could be back there, wherever that may be this time. Now the problem is not that I am scared of tomorrow, but that yesterday and the fantasies beyond dance out of reach and it seems less pertinent to mutter any yearning for them to return. It was never about how far I could go but how long I could keep it.


Originally performed for slam competition 2/10/11
Originally written on 4/2/08

Compulsive

I keep checking the mail.
Looking for a package I know will never arrive, because no one is going to send it. But I just keep checking to see if the courage has been gathered for anyone else but me to shout out words into the rain. I'm singing out my life story and I'm wondering if anyone can hear me. And I'm pretty sure I'm being heard, but I'd like someone to shout back and tell me they think I'm doing well enough and could be on TV one day. I'm blasting my radio with my favorite song and I'd like to see if anyone else will make a fool of themselves with me. Because I'm dancing like an idiot in the supermarket and I'll always be doing funny things if it'll get a smile on someone's face.

I keep going out of my way to make a scene. And maybe it's not the best idea I can have, but I'm digging my nails in until someone screams out with an actual reaction. I'd like to hear a response filled with opinions and thoughts. I'd like to know if my being forward makes others uncomfortable or gives me freedom. My freedom to do the extraordinary will always be a free invitation for others to join in.

So when I ask what you thought of what I did, it isn't because I want to hear praise. I want to hear you. So come grab my hands and dance down the dairy aisle with me. I want to feel someone else screaming lyrics in the car seat next to me, I want to lose my voice between the raindrops. I want to open the mailbox and have something outrageous come flying into my world.


Originally performed 1/20/11
Originally written on 11/12/06

Encounter.

when the muse comes for you, you will know:
she is not a kind lover,
but she IS beautiful.
her breasts, despite the cliches of mountains,
are but sleek river banks---soft and warm,
but before you rest your bones,
she will find a flood
and drown all your comfort.
when you look into her eyes,
you will see not stars or lakes
or pools of ethereal light
but vast deserts---you will see
where oceans have missed the land
and you will learn
of desire beyond your physical body.
the type of ache that
stretches for miles and eons.

she will appear in the shroud of twilight,
just as the sun is escaping the sky
and the opposite horizon echos a purple hue.
at first, especially if you're not paying attention,
she will seem to be an old maid,
bent over with a cane to support her wilting frame.
but as your eyes learn of her image,
you will see the waterfalls of hair
flowing down her back
and a face that tells fortunes for a smile.

when the muse comes for you, you will know:
she is not a kind lover,
but she IS beautiful.
remember not to run as you see her.
at first she is frightening,
and as you look on,
she will only become more so.
don't pretend that you are brave,
just let your fear wash over you.
though her gnashing teeth may make you falter,
and her claws seem sharp and angry,
her hips are built to rock you
her skin sewn together to fulfill every wish.

when the muse comes for you,
put down everything else you are doing
and run to her side.
she is not here to comfort you,
but she will show you things you've never seen
before and could never see without her.


Originally performed on open mic 10/14/10
Originally written on 10/12/10

affirmation/prayer/love

Know that you are beautiful and wonderful;
nothing could ever hurt you or harm you.
You will win out in the end,
with that triumph in your chest
and a gleam in your eye.
There isn't a single soul that could stand in your way
or anyone that can waste your time of day:
you choose what you see
you gain what you need to learn.

Know these truths and be free
smile and live happily.

Cold Goodbye (The End of a Chapter)

Everything has a piece of you that I love(d) waiting to sneak up on me.

And it feels like I did when I stumbled upon that empty village;
when we walked into that cold apartment
with a breeze that came in through the floor
even with the windows sealed shut.

I know because it's like walking in on yourself
as you look over old, broken memories.
And look, that's where I held your hand,
and that's where I fell for you all over again
and that's when we did, and we felt, and we were.

Looking back on it, the barrel of tears in my throat can't seem to say enough.
Just a washing of waves through the grains that were once mighty stones.
A harsh light on the silent night walls of buildings.
The cloudy air of the coast,
the unrelenting roar of waves,
the disappearing horizon line.
Just a quiet surrender of the giants to the fall,
a whispered goodbye to someone and something
long gone
and faded.

Inspired by the track "Zerthis was a Shivering Human Image" by Eluvium, urgency, reminiscence, longing, and a strange sense of happirness.

Reflection

He is my Ganesh
And together we are painting the walls blue.
The color of clarity.
Instead of knocking down the walls entirely,
but still recreating the sky no one else can see.
This is about the brevity of sainthood,
or the fear of happiness.
Because the questions we're asking aren't:
"What could you lose?"
or "what will you gain?"
But more of a quiet: "What could you possibly be missing?"
I need not so much a smile
as I need a gentle nod.
Just enough reassurance to move forward
without the push of a stroked ego.

A Study of Surrealism

I want to blame the exhaustion, but the truth of the matter is that I'm crying like a child because I'll miss you and everything is going to fall apart.

I've missed people before. The way that a finger misses the weight of a gaudy ring by keeping a phantom buzz on the skin.
But I'm missing you in a different way. The way my grandmother's boyfriend misses the use of his arms. You don't realize how absolutely necessary your muscles are until you need to do something simple like scratch your nose.

My second confession is that missing you wouldn't be nearly as bad if it weren't clear to me how much everyone else that I already long for will miss you too. It makes me want to turn off the television I've been watching in my head. It just broadcasts reruns of emotions trying to rip apart the screen. Everyone else's feelings are projected onto me and all of it adds up to missing someone I barely know, crying until tears can't come anymore, and feeling a fire lit within me that I seem to have forgotten.

If only I could wake myself up from this dream, I feel like I could get others to run alongside me the same way you do.

Before This War

There is a man and he rocks me.
This steady motion follows a path and sets music to life. The notes show a dreamscape he's only spoken of before and here it is on the walls around us. I could live in his arms, just in this moment. So that every time he holds me I hear the same melody whispering from another dimension and another time.

This is a different kind of safety, where I am not just saving you but you defended every bit of me.