Adventures in NaPoWriMo 5/30

four years in

and the call of the host is never a shout from any stage

the applause never a thunder of hands from people waiting to hear me speak

as always

i am nine years old and sulking

silently in the corner of my grandmother’s house

refusing to talk to anyone save my cousin about watching for cops on the block

and he

can only get codes i whisper in a way that only family can hear

and everyone is tired of tiptoeing around this quiet child from northern georgia

taking up more of an already too small space in their orlando home

and when i hear the shout of any host

calling me to a microphone

i remember the day my grandmother gave me a pen and said “write a poem”

that the quiet way i kept was eating away at my heart

“and her oldest son’s child wasn’t getting heartsick on her watch”

and since then

anyone calling me to spit

has my grandmother’s voice

reminding me to live

the hands clapping like dinner sizzling on the stove the next room over

and this is family

sharing stories ‘round a kitchen table after a day of work

them

in casual freestyle laughter

me

reading a poem

Adventures in Twilight

So.

I will admit that I've told the story of how I came to read the Twilight series, so many times that even I have believed that it's true. In fact, I didn't even realize that it was a lie until last night, as I was walking away from the theatre, having finally seen the last installment of the film adaptation. Truth is - we gulity pleasured our way through that series together. I remember finding it at the corner of your bed, immediately launching into almost merciless teasing, and being walloped over the head with a pillow several times until I finally agreed to read the first chapter at least....

I will admit that walking away from the movie without you on my arm, felt a little like being unfaithful - and I still don't know what to do about that. These days you are like a splinter in my mind that there aren't tweezers strong enough to extract.
--

*sigh*

I'm sitting at my friends's house, staring at a picture of a boat on a dock in a town that looks rather New Englandy, and I'm really wishing that I painted. I feel like I could knock out some pretty angsty post-modern abstract expressionist something or other with a black stripe and a lot of swirls or something.

Peace Be

Adventures in Gratitude

so.

with all the connectivity and openness brought about by facebook and twitter and now even the post secret mobile app, i have spent much of the day being bored by the "here's what i'm thankful for" lists of friends, family members, and strangers alike. there's something that seems so disingenuous about posting something like that on this holiday, devoted mainly to mass food consumption and extreme shopping conditions. i mean i get it - it's called thanksgiving. therefore there is an almost compulsive desire to give thanks. but i promise most of the things i read felt like they'd been copied from an eCard and pasted into the status box...

nevertheless.

it's 11:35 and i'm neither sleepy, nor able to wrestle the remote control away from my baby brother in order to watch something coherent on television. so i present to you:

The Official Thanksgiving 2011 List of Things For Which I Am Thankful

(woo!)

I'm thankful most of all for how my relationship with God has been changing, and the ability to separate what is true about my church from what is true about God. and the ability i guess to look at the discrepancy and see how best to love God and to love my church...which you all know i do (cogic for life - son).

Thankful for friendship and all the ways that it presents itself. Thankful for Casper and how it's not always easy to get to know me and then love me....but she has been persistent and resilient...and somehow managed to become and remain my best friend through all of it. Thankful for old friends that I don't get to talk to or see as much....but still know exactly what I mean and what I need when I reach out to them randomly...usually by emailing some hastily written and unfinished po-em..or a random g-chat at 2 in the morn (yeah.. Carrie, Chriss, Di - I'm talking about you). Thankful for unexpected friends like Mary Beth, and unpredictable friends like Jess...both Jesses. Thankful for friends that aren't friends anymore. Even though I miss them dearly.

Thankful for being a part of the kind of family that would post pieces of their Thanksgiving Day on UStream.

Thankful for po-e-try and all the place its taken me the past couple years. Still don't know how long I'm going to do the dance between performance po-et and teacher....don't know who I'm going to leave the dance floor with....but I never imagined that I would get to do some of the stuff that I've done with my words, and I really am grateful for that.

Also for all of the crap that people have been annoying me with all day...a job, place to stay, food to eat, clothes to wear, et cetera, et cetera...

And I'm grateful to still be here.

Even though it's hard.

It's good to be here.

Peace Be