Dallas Grand Slam and little 'ol me: also, I still can't believe all that stuff actually happened

the last time I slammed off for a team was 2009. I won't say which team I slammed for, or give a lot of details, but I will say that the experience was nothing short of traumatic. there were a lot of different factors to that contributed to that trauma: trying to make a team with my girlfriend on my birthday in front of people who had never seen me perform. that night is part of the reason why I don't drink as much anymore. so, suffice to say, after that night I wasn't into slamming anymore. I think it was about 2 years until I hit a stage again.
flash forward some years. I had gotten back into writing. I got back into performing again. people really seemed to enjoy my poetry and I liked being able to share. I decided that one of my goals was to make a slam team just because I wanted to enjoy the camaraderie that you have with people all working towards a common goal.
the only thing about slam is, its so unpredictable - the judges can like you or not like you. you can give it your all and still come in last which hurts. like hell. in all the times that I had did slams before, I never won. always 3rd or worse. so my confidence has never really been high when it comes to slam.
preparing for the 2013 Dallas Grand Slam was more about making sure that I told a story over anything else. I wanted to make sure that my poems were memorized and that I was able to articulate the wording in them so that people would understand. I knew the poems that I wanted to do but I also wanted to have new poems to debut. during practices I never timed any poems. I didn't really care about time. its never been about that to me which is funny when you do slam. (and now definitely has to change)
day of, it was really important to me to get into a very comfortable mindstate so that I wouldn't put too much pressure on myself. I purposely didn't picture or try to visualize what would happen that night so I went in with zero expectations.
I pulled number 4 during the draw which I felt really good about and just tried to get in the zone so be able to perform my poems.
when I'm on stage I don't ever really hear audience reaction. I'm so caught up in making sure that I articulate the poem, and give enough pause for audience reaction that I rarely actually hear any audible noise.
I won't go into how I felt after every performance, but I will say that everyone seemed to enjoy it. There were times when I had to gather myself.
performing snowflake was great to do but I know I didn't perform it as well as I thought I could have. I can tell you the places where I slipped up or stumbled over my words or rearranged phrases to make it to the next part of the poem. apparently other people didn't notice and everybody in the room absolutely enjoyed it. I'm saying that from a place of hindsight - all the people who mobbed me or hugged me or told me how great that poem was when I got off stage because I had no clue. the most important thing for me at that time was making it out the first round. and I did. With a time penalty.
the rest of the night was a blur of emotion. I will say that one of the best parts of the night was having my mother there. although she's been supporting my poetry for a while now, it's still really nice to have her there, to tell me to stop being nervous cause I got this. she can be awesome sometimes. :)
so, after the second round, two things were brought to my attention: 1. I was doing incredibly well. 2. I was going over time. a lot. enough that a few poets threatened me, more than enough made sure I knew, and one told me I was fucking it up for myself. so the last two rounds, I just tried to breathe through them to make it.
once the slam was over, I was nervous as hell. a part of me still felt like I wasn't going to make the team, so I started preparing myself for that. but then, I had to be realistic and prepare for the fact that I may have won. when my name was called second, there was so much joy in me, I can't even describe. I was crying by the time I hit the stage (which, if you know me, is rare because I do not cry). it's definitely a dream come true.
the things that I will remember the most about that night are all the people who told me how proud they were of me, who said encouraging words and were pulling for me to win. I'm not disappointed that I didn't win - my brother Rage just proved how he's been doing it for years and excelling at a national level. I'm super proud of him, and I can't wait to get started working.
2013 is turning out to be a great year, and we're only 4 months in. . .

mermaid

The sand between my toes is my first reminder that we existed
the grit gathering in the crease of my skin makes me smile
I remember how it got there
building sandcastle foundations with our body imprints in the only space we can ever share
between normality
fantasy
and ecstasy
the night I watched you sink with Atlantis across the horizon
I knew
I'd follow you to the bottom of the ocean
but you met me halfway
we lay
Tempurpedic shore or suspended stasis of ocean blue
and become one
lovers split between two worlds
I am lucky you breathe for me
take the oxygen from my lungs when I stare at your majesty
blow life back in me when we kiss
met above the clouds of her world
she calls me her falling star
a comet who stopped streaking past the sky to become the wish she'd always been denied
she is
the woman I would forsake land for
give God my ribs for gills since I've found the Eve of my life
though she only rises when the skies dust dark as the ocean floor
I would
love fully a woman I can only see in the nighttime
who can only love me back when she feels like dreaming
link on the surface of my consciousness to swim
easy laps around impossibility
you weren't always a mermaid
couldn't be
you coiled ankle around feet and your thighs whispering you love me
are my second and third reminders that my subconscious didn't create you
to keep me from drowning in my misery
you
beautiful defense mechanism
muscle memory mythology
I press her stray fish scales to my ear to hear what she's left for me
eloquent sea shell poetry
laps like gentle morning waves
wafting sonnets and couplets like
cool breezes under the sea
Ariel pursuits will only take you so far
down
to where the ear pop pressure forces you to the
surface where the tide slowly wipes away from fingerprints
mermaid
don't leave
wake up next to me and prove again
that we existed

National Poetry Month's 30 for 30

In honor of National Poetry Month, I'll be attempting to write a poem a day. Today's piece:

On these spring mornings
The sun beams, breeze kiss my skin
And count my tattoos

WoWps performance videos

So, as you may have guessed, I spent last week in Minneapolis, MN competing at the Women of the World Poetry Slam. It was my first national competition, and I was extremely excited just to share my poems with other wonderful female poets from around the country.
I managed to get my performances in the second bout recorded for your viewing pleasure, so please comment, view, share and all that jazz. Without further ado:

Scarecrow



She Eats

Cheekbones

*At a body workshop at the Women of the World Poetry Slam, we were given time to compose a poem about a body part and the opinions protected onto it.

Right angles
Straight
Defined
There is no curvature to me that I see
Although there is a window
Sun shining bright unlike any other
I am still a jail cell
There is no smell
The air stale to the aroma of the outside
I know it smells beautiful out there
but in here I feel enclosed
Like
Everyone will walk past and marvel at the history lived inside me
This
A dank room
Like now that I am contained
Unoccupied
A symbol of a past pain made beautiful illuminated by this radiant sunlight
They can touch me on the outside
Fingering me on the inside
It's ok
I am used to the pinches
I wonder
Do they feel the bricks in my smile
The paint peeling every time I flex against myself
You file past me
Wait your turn to peer inside the tiny viewhole
Do you always mean to only look straight ahead
At the sunlight
At the window
Are you afraid to look down
You don't notice the scratch marks at the base of the wall
I've clawed so long to escape
I pace
Instead of sleep on the dusty mattress that my father gave me
Sleep under the wool blanket my mother knitted for me
All you admirers
Marveling at my construction
Chipping into me with every step in front of my door
I am just one room
In the hallway of this aging museum
This renovated prison
Corner wing leaning against and into and onto a whole too thin and big and wide to be called a prison museum attraction
How much was your ticket?
Who told you you could come?
Who lets you in?
Who keeps the keys?
Why won't you come in and finger these walls
Burning from the sunlight you admire
And look in the mirror

Skydive

(This poem was written during a poet workshop session. The prompt was "I'm not ready," and we were given 13 minutes.)

She love me like skydive
Packed her parachute with the dreams of flying through the clouds with me
Letting the wind both carry and caress her on the way down
She'd scream
And laugh
and revel in the moments as they ticked away and we reached the peak
I haven't managed to pry my fingers from the notches on the side of the plane
On the outside I look just like her
My helmet is chin strapped to my inhibitions
My suit is the uniform of fallen angels
Falling angles together
I can hear her Geronimo in my fears
She's loving the ride and hasn't bared to look at her passenger side
If I jump now
I maybe can mask my hesitation
She'll never know my indiscretion against the metronome of our virgin flight
Cupid shot her
She shot herself off the cliff
The first step into blissful nothingness
If I shoot now
I'll be a bullet to catch her
Descend at the same trajectory
And we can fly like meteors
But love like birds diving
She can't see me gaining speed
My fingers graze her string and she jerks toward the heavens
Her wings block out the sun
And she loves like a skydive
While I scream

Ice cold

*suggested music: Tori Kelly's Stained

My hands have begun to crave your touch like I am draining without your skin on mine
I settle for your lips
And you kiss me like IVs
Like I can feel your wanting and I'm here
Its not my intention to fall in love with you
This big heart you claim I have turned to stone when I looked and loved too many Medusas
How dare you
Wrap your arms around my concrete
You don't know what it took for me to be ok with that cold
I had finally become comfortable in the not feeling
The not loving
The not dreaming
I've stopped talking in the future tense
I prefer moments to eternity
Eternity is squeezing you tight til we astral project this reality and I can feel you breathing inside of my chest
That's what intimacy with you feels like
I love it
More than I love you
But that is shifting the longer you contend to stay and deal with my bullshit
The longer you pretend to not feel me pushing you away
I will love you like you love me like after school
Like full speed bike rides through soft gravel
She's not afraid to fall and skin her needs on my sand
I've counted your scars and I don't wanna be your salve
A bandaid you neatly fold and throw away when you are healed
Or take off when your subconscious decides that wound needs air
Stop making me need you
Keep your saline kisses
I like my cold
I would rather lay in bed
Surrounding myself with the exhale of thoughts from people who will never know what they mean to me
How much I bask in their light because I love the heat of their sun
Its safer that way
Knowing that the smoke will dissipate
Its not supposed to stay
I don't want to love the semi-permanent you
The promised love that will stay
Until
Until the moment it doesn't
And the world turns cold
Dark
No, I want sun on my skin
And to keep my cold within