Goodnight

Even though I am alone
I still remove my bra like a
shy sixth grader at summer camp,
afraid of an errant nipple exposed to fellow bunkmates.
I arch back and under my shirt to remove the hook
before pulling the straps down and out each arm like a
straight jacket escape in dress rehearsal.
I reach up the front of my shirt and
pull it down in one dramatic swoop,
feeling the weightlessness of breath in my exhale.
Stretch my shoulders back just to
remind myself what skin feels like.

I never like brushing my teeth.

About once a week, I don’t do it on purpose.
I will be out and the night will be winding down
and I will think “I’m not going to brush tonight.”
I am the fucking boss.

The clothes for sleeping are tucked behind my pillow
and change weekly with the sheets.
Lately they include socks which are inevitably
kicked off in the night
but feel so amazing in those moments before slumber,
when I rub my feet together and up my leg
to the beat of to-do lists and a day replayed.

I have rituals to calm my brain.
Sometimes I have a little conversation with god.
Sometimes I masturbate.
But I always think about the things I am grateful for-
the things that propelled me into
happiness or thought or uncomfortable feelings
or fullness or awareness in my waking moments.

Then I lean over
Rearrange the pillows so they arch
in that memorized way
Curl up my body into a ball with my blankets
or a partner
or the bear gifted to me at birth.

My lungs grow fat with that last vocal sigh-
I am ready to leave the world behind for a few hours.

Anddddd.... we're back!

Holy shyt. I can't believe nearly two months have gone by since I last updated. I can't really find the right excuses for this, although my favorite blogger has fallen into the same pattern so it must be something in the water.

What is new with me you ask?

* Tara B, Gowri K, Jonathan B-T and I heard the musical stylings of Niggy Tardust (aka, Saul Williams) and got to afterparty with the fella at Liv. One should never stay up that late on a Sunday night, but it was well worth it (despite "afropunk" maybe being my least preferred musical genre ever).

* I attended J Street conference for both professional and personal reasons, despite the great poet debacle. Though I was at a wedding for their revenge performance at Busboys and Poets, I heard it was great. As far as J Street goes, though it was not as provacative as I would have liked, I think there may just be hope for a voice of peace, hope and coexistence in the American lobby. Salaam.

* I had the best performance of my life at Spit Dat two weeks ago. In the craziness of getting ready for J Street, it seemed fitting to perform a piece that touched on my feelings about Israel. Dwayne B remarked to the crowd that the first couple of stanzas could easily be about DC. Word.

And coming up:

* I will be leading my FIRST EVER POETRY WORKSHOP at my house on November 11th at 7pm. Would love to see your beautiful faces.

* On November 12th, mothertongue turns 11! We are having a FREE show at the Black Cat at 9pm (come at 8 to drink with me). Support women and local artists!

Thanks for not giving up on reading this (and for not let me give up on writing it)!
New stuff to come soon!

New Sh*t!

My brother and I are working on a new project. 10 weeks. 10 topics. We each write and maybe they'll be a chapbook down the line. For the first week our topic was "The End of the Summer."

Right before your leaves turned orange
I thought about the peach I ate last August.
That lone fruit you handed to me right before
our summer expired-
it tasted like an apology.
Like every note spoken between us
What you gave me then was edible,
disposable like seasons.
It couldn’t stay around longer than my lips would let it
But I let it.

And now summer is molding into another Fall
Reminding me how, in a second, rain can thin
out the humidity in this city.
How the convexity of air between every sapling kiss
can stale my lungs again.
You left in a sand storm
boots up like a hero
Asking me one last time what god meant to me
and I told you she lives in this limbo
This time when the next season seems
like nothing but possible.

The sun is creeping behind the clouds earlier these days
Makes it easier to sink into my bed without your
memory hanging in the daylight
Dusk reminding me of secrets passed
between open mouth breaths
Intentional
Piercing
Cold like this makes it impossible to remember warmth
The memory of your season is out of my grasp again.

Like teeth on a too ripe peach
My brain is sinking into mush
Puddling into something that used to be whole

This is what the end of summer brings each time you leave
We are seasons too brief for memory
And the candid shots of coasts
we used to dream about together

Just two orange Polaroids,
disposable as the wind.

Come Support Me at 11th Hour Slam. Busboys on 14th. Fri 9/11. 11pm.

I will be competing in the slam this Friday Sept 11th at 11pm (but to actually get in, you have to get there at 10) at Busboys & Poets on 14th and V. Have I practiced yet? No. Have I memorized any of the pieces I'm doing? Heck nah. This is why I need your love and support to sway the judges. I'm making it my goal to get on the National's team this year and every point counts! Only $5!

More info: http://www.busboysandpoets.com/events.php

I wear my sunglasses under the chuppah

It was a sunny southern wedding ceremony for my dear friends Jamie and Steve who got married this weekend on a farm outside Chapel Hill, NC. They asked me to write and recite a poem for them at their ceremony as a modern and progressive translation of the Sheva Brachot (Seven Blessings) that are traditionally recited at Jewish weddings. Heres at it:

Today nature’s hand is creeping 

up from the earth like a golden flower
Reminding us how much richer the soil is today-
the mountains inching a little closer to the sky.

The kisses of wind to skin remind us 

what alive feels like today
Let the silence of earth be the pause 

needed to reflect on the blessings of our years
Let the shadow of clouds drifting blue behind us
allow the collapse of sky to drip into our lungs.

Breathe
The earth is inflating with our wholeness today
The genuine human spirit that we are lucky
enough to hold in our palm
Clutch it with your heart
but allow your hands to be forever open-
to welcome, to love, to accept.

Let us find comfort in the one who inspires us today
Holding ourselves up to a mirror that reflects 

consciousness of the world’s fusions and fissures,
awareness of the creation that comes from within
that makes life tangible, attainable, possible.

It is with each new phase in our lives that we sing back,
listening for the echo of our soul to
reverberate in our ribcages.
Reminding us of what has been
Reminding us that true completion of each moment
is necessary for flight
Necessary for finding true tranquility in the peace 

of life’s connections

It is the beauty of life’s connections that unify us today
Each somehow touched by this blending of souls
Whether it is she, a smile stretched like a canvass, wide-eyed and never failing in finding life’s highest altitudes
Or he, patient, tender, a world behind those kind eyes
It is by them that we truly see 

the wonder of cycles repeating
Of waves crashing at the right second
to bring us to this moment.

It is with singing that we are reminded of the lightness
of voices lifting into air
Unifying creatures into community
into harmony
Into the hope that if we follow your footprints
Living each day with fullness, awareness and giving
We too can find the kind of love that sustains

that nourishes
And that brings us true and gratifying peace.

Notes on the Other Side of Silence

One.
Someday you’ll wake up and realize
you haven’t been sleeping
Her morning breath whispered in my ear half asleep
half a bottle of wine still sloshing in my eardrums
Last night we ate guacamole out of a tortilla boat
and talked about other coasts
I said I’ve been afraid of flying lately
Afraid of the sky sucking me back up
into where I came from
And she says that’s completely ridiculous Sarah-
You come from the earth dammit
And I believe her
This is the only thing that’s made sense to me in 93 days.

Two.
When I try to see into tomorrow
the only postcard I get back is a wall
So he asks me to tell him what my bricks are made of
I don’t know I say
he says TRY
and I say I don’t know
and he says TRY
and I say one
is for the visionary that lives under the bridge in my lungs
Two is for the day I wake up inflated with your prologue
Three is for the voiceless, broken, can’t make sense
of why this is important
Four is for the fear that the bricks are always present
and that God is not inside these clouds
Five is the clouds, beating chaos into my mornings
Six is that broken girls don’t make good lovers
Seven is that I will never fly again, never love the sky again
never hold the hand and feel that I
deserve that warmth again,
I fear that I may never look at my reflection
in the mirror or the clouds or your eyeball
and know that is me again.
I feel that I may never feel like me again.

And it’s funny, really, his silence
Im waiting for him to pull me close, closer and whisper
“Baby, Lets deconstruct this Babylon together”

Three.
The bombshell in front of me at the Post Office
is wearing Seven Jeans
For Man-fucking-kind I think
Her painted toes remind me how pathetic I am, I think
She puts her padded manila envelope on the desk
smothered in hearts and kisses
And asks them how quickly a first class package
can arrive in Iraq

Nobody really has all their shit together.

FREE mothertongue show 8/19 @ Black Cat @ 8PM

It's August, it's hot and mothertongue is going recession friendly for their summer show. Come support DC's women's spoken word group at the Black Cat on Wednesday August 19th at 8pm. The show is FREE, Jenny C. Lares is featuring, there is an open mic open to all and donations ($5 suggested) benefit WIN (Women's Information Network).

For more information on the show, check out the facebook invite.

What happens when you ask your waiter for a prompt

Gowri K and I met for a long overdue Sunday afternoon at Tryst today. With no inspiration of our own brewing,  we asked our waiter for a jumping off point. Turns out, he had almost died on his drive to Adam's Morgan from Virginia. So here goes "I almost died." Also much thanks to the wonderful bartenders we sat next to who bought us shots of Blue Curacao (?). Random but tasty.

I almost died this morning

Twice

The first time I got lost in the soundtrack of your 

breath as we slept. 

You whispering in my ear with each

dip in your dreaming. 

I forgot what my breath tasted like. 

Forgot that the nutrition of your touch, your limbs

Felt essential as hearts beating, breaking. 

I wanted to forget about that rhythm and try 

your lungs instead 

But morning reminded me of time, rhythms. 

I knew we'd eventually rise to burnt toast and crosswords

And the moment on the stoop when I want to grab you 

and run away to under the covers. 

See I almost died today.

Twice.

I arose and went back to sleep.

But in those moments before consciousness

before the day's hissing latte machine or somber music,

with your breath playing that hymnal in my ear,

briefly before daylight stole you away

I lived. 

Like A Wave

Like a wave, when they came, they came like a wave

Like the ocean floor rolling sunken treasures

over their skin and in and out of their

salted fingernails

They came like winter

Too soon to get used to cold current

ripping through icicle lungs

They came like a wave

Two by two and in every variety

There were miracles then

Etched in the sand and coral-

the stories of floating fisherman boots

and lost caverns.

They came like the blazing sun on beaches

Fading everything in the path of its glow

They came like a wave

I hope you glow like that

They came like a wave

Don't forget their candle flickered underwater

and warned us of trespassers

Of bottom-feeders looking for some oxygen.

I pray for the wave to roll over your tentacles

and give you peace

The sky cannot haunt you here.

They came like a wave

With tides like lullabies

to rock them back to slumber.

When they came

They floated to shore with the afternoon

Slept naked on the beach with sand and starfish

When they came, they came like a wave.

A New Poem!

To be sampled this Thursday at Spit Dat (1351 U Street- Capoira Center- 8pm). Written for final performance of Capturing Fire 2 the week of August 22.

God or Something Like Her

I don’t pretend to be close to God
But there are certain times when prayers rock me golden
Like yellow beats
Move me like trees swaying in the DC fall
as the branches bare themselves

I am naked
in these moments
Exposed to the most of my soul
And the breath of my skin
heavy with goose bumps and weakness.

“Is God in there?”
I ask in this seconds before sleep comes
When the harmony of voices has sped out of my universe
And I’m left wondering if that was a religious experience

or just a poor man’s version of soul

I toss in sleep
With nightmares of gravity
And the clouds hanging above my slumber
haunt me like grey ghosts.

I wake to the applause of my insides
slow like necessity
I don’t know how to keep this fresh
How to take the down tempo beats blasting
And have them bring me to a higher being

Like lost cities or childhood
I am just trying to bring me back to civilized.
To God or something like her.

Rock me with your lyrics
Dream me into infinity 1000 times over
If I wasn’t so afraid of death I would have done this by now

Sink into the reservoir of blues, greens, spirituality
Beautiful like rain pounding the humid city

on an August day

Like renewal
Like understanding real and not distance
Like lifelong strangers asking if you need a hug

No bitch, I need a voice
I am mute with hallucinogens
Can you stomach that?
Your prayers can’t make my blood thicker or richer
But it can make me feel whole again
like orange peels or the West Coast
Like long drives or phone calls that end with I Love Yous

Something about this feels real
Like love, ache, breaking, body

I move with the beats, rhythm
Feel the spirit of the music in my veins, bones
I am just working on understanding the lyrics.

Gowri K and Sarah L feature at Sparkle! Wed 9pm!

Gowri K and I will be featuring (performing 4-5 poems each) at Sparkle, a queer-friendly reading for all, at Busboys and Poets on 5th and K at 9pm on Wednesday July 22 at 9pm.

Hosted by Danielle E. Come enjoy/support/ listen/ read on the open mic. $3 gets you in.

Come support us in both of our first features!
More info.

Exquisite Corpse II

Another corpse, courtesy of Evan C.
There is a beat in the
back of my neck
That tells my limbs when to dance
Tells my eyes when to glance
And guides my legs as they leap.
I want to learn to skip again
Float like my child brain and
Bones remember how to fly
And lips recall the lie
That held our bodies down
Pinned down like necessity
Before our muscles told us to move more
After we layed and splayed and run our bodies sore
Before, before, before
We were ever born.

Lately

Lately
I read the emergency procedures as I
ride the red line to Dupont
Pluck heroes from the crowd and sit closest to them
Breath anxiety in and out of my lungs while

Talya is coming out of her coma in Mumbai
They say she looks like Natalie Portman’s shaved head now
and that reminds me of Seattle

But I’m back in DC
Worried about voltage
About the inertia running a river like lava under our seats
I pound music in my temples to occupy the space there as

Talya’s temples
brain
crack
skull
fracture
As Eastern antidotes ease her into coma
And I hope she doesn’t sleep long enough
For her parents to
have two special needs kids now.

I don’t know how to breathe in the world anymore
Lately the heaviness of humidity is an elephant in my lungs
And there is injustice and lost souls and
zombies inhabiting grown men’s bodies and
celebrity corpses
fucking
everywhere

And I breathe

Wonder about the people I will keep closest
If they will really only stab me in the front
Or if they come up cold like carcasses from the gravel
I worry about what I can’t see in my periphery

And I think I need to have sex.
Emergency sex
Saturday afternoon with no roommates or formalities sex
And I can’t sleep.

My eyelashes flutter to the beat of a broken commute
And the burial shrouds that crowd the space
where their breath used to be
Lately I’m thinking about the screech of metal
Taking folks to heaven instead of home.
I’m dreaming of Talya’s post week long nap and
Sleep filled eyes waking to hospital lights
bright with confusion
As her shaky hands touch the cracked cactus
where her foot long curls used to be

Lately
We are all trains bound and gagged for glory
On tracks tangled and demented by time
We are all just surviving this
All just bracing for impact
It’s up to no one to tell us how to breathe right again
So we exist on empty lungs and diesel filled skulls
Convinced we are headed to purgatory or worse
Convinced that we can learn to breathe underwater
Convinced our ignition is lit by burning emotion
And not funeral pyres.

And we breathe.

Because lately in our bones
that’s the only thing we all seem to know
for certain how to do.

Oh, Hello Again

I've been lazy about the blog lately. 

But now with summer creeping in and the second edition of the Capturing Fire writing workshop taking up my Tuesday nights, hopefully there will be some more writing happening. First up, take Dwight Okita's Letters I Never Wrote and write your own letter from your dark ages.

dear child, 

When you run your back is butterfly wings

the hiss of a hurricane as it touches down heavy

but lord knows you are no cyclone

 no force freight training through a town

you frown and bear the weight of thunder

echoing through doors and hallways

of tiny dollhouse dreams. 

Sitting at the edge of the banister

you pump scripture into your brain

while friction grows louder in smashed plates

 in memories of infant swallowed hard like sidewalk chalk

or taken easy like stained glass shadows on

cobblestone streets.           

 We retreat to cocoons

when the loud is no longer music.

Soundwave slaps ricochet off silk-

reminding us of the wholeness of sound

as we plea for unexpected silence.

For the secrets of metamorphosis to expose us

until the day we can once again,

beautifully as magic,

pray heaven back into our bones. 

Lyrically Handsome

Come to Spit Dat open mic tomorrow night (Thursday June 4)! Formerly at the former Mocha Hut, now meets every Thursday from 8pm-11pm at the Universal Capoeira Angola Center (1351 U Street NW) in alley right after you pass a Karate center on the north side. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite open mic spots.

And if you read the last post, both Gowri and I will be sharing some new writing from Sunday.

So come! Only $1!

Exquisite Corpse

Gowri and I met this Sunday to do some writing. Both out of practice and out of it in general, we decided to kick off with the session with an exercise of writing known as an Exquisite Corpse. She started with two lines and folded over the paper so I could only see the second line. Then I wrote two lines off her one line and passed the paper back to her with only my second line visible. We did this until we got to the end of the page and here's what happened. Not too shabby.

blades whirring making breeze
blow right by me wind walking
let your dust get in my eyes
i no longer see right through you
but can you see into me into
the guts whose substance is beyond beauty
you are the cancer of my organs
until everything inside is dysfunctional and black
don't look back look ahead it's not
useless to make plans just don't get attached
don't marionette yourself to this
pretend, with me, that we never have to play grown up
just sit by me 'cause time will
take its toll on us whether we move or not
pay the toll man, phantom and weary
pass go and collect what's left of your pieces

Sue Me. It's a Sex Poem. or How Slaw Survived May Haitus: Writing

You and me are a corpse’s cocktail
Punch drunk with hazy,
we dance floor make believe
Like our bones are
drenched in venom

We are rum and diet and a dance floor
Reality made sticky with sweat and So Co
and eyes darting at our hot public mess.  
Your hands
just might be my favorite mixer.

We are a Sex on the Beach or the bed or
the bathroom of this bar. 

Blue Moons at BBQs in Bloomingdale on Sundays
Broken bottles and empty boxes of wine
We lie to ourselves when we say this
is just recreational.

The occasional flaming shot electrifying
firecracker nights
Or sipped slowly so we sober this a little better
The bite of whiskey with Coca Cola
classic and predictable
Like this.

The changing tides of Manhattans
or Martini’s once sweetened
taken straight up
with age.  

We are Capirinias to get exotic
Mojitos to feel toxic
And Long Islands when we just want to stay local

You and me
are the late night happy hour special
An Extra Dirty Martini with no meal since breakfast
The Bitches Brew straight on till
morning’s Bloody Mary

Or the occasional High Life,
sipped in showers
Before porch sitting afternoon on couches
Smells placed potent under my beak,
easing me back to consciousness.

We are tequila’s burning plateau before elation

So drink me baby
Sing my veins back to electric
Taste my body raw and depleted
Drip into my shell
Whole and open

Our breath is silent-
as we tiptoe into creaking floor board bedroom
For another too-loud-for-neighbors night
Smash Hypnotiq hour glasses on nightstands
Pretending we never have to wake
to tomorrow’s hangover.

Day 28: My Hometown

My hometown rocks bombs made of paper and steel
It is equal parts pomegranate and salt water
Rummages through ashes of hopes and history
and tourists lined up for a view

My hometown weeps for steady soil and handshakes
Unbroken promises or steel embedded dreams
It is the dream of antiquated generations and
adolescents and sometimes
even me

My hometown’s rockets speak Russian
and whiz through Diaspora
It is a fingernail in the much larger
ocean of the universe
But it sticks on my lungs like the
labored breath of its shade
The smoke of Jaffa or the
symphony of sirens as the sun sets
on another week

Here
echoes are the only thing we can all agree on
The neutral nature of sound when it drips off tongues

Like the notes spoken when you ask if I’m Jewish
Upon my yes-
“It’s pretty fucked up what’s happening in Israel”
Word
But I am not the Gaza strip
Not the walls of women wailing as their houses are leveled
Not the dismantled boy whose healthcare
is on the other side of a checkpoint
I am more Rachel Corrie than the bulldozer
I am never the bulldozer
Or the soldier who’s only Arabic is “STOP or I’ll shoot”

I do not hold a PhD in conflict resolution

But I do know this

When my eyes roll back for sleep
there is a firework of a Tel Aviv
sunset burned on my resting corneas
Wholeness exists for me only in the
desert of the south
Or the shuk on a bustling Friday
Scents of roasted chick peas and
spiced teabags
Real and comfortable
like home

My hometown taught me how to coexist over
Arak in Ashkelon bars
Wake to shakshuka with sabras in hotel rooms
And worship stars for peace from bomb shelters
my students used as a library
in the Golan

So when I wake up at night
sweaty with nightmare
It is my hometown anthem pumping in my eardrums
Like the soundtrack of my own funeral

My hometown-
I
am
tethered to you
So please, for my sake,
Could you learn how to behave?

Day 21: Cocina

My lover and I are in the cocina with spices
While outside rain patters on
tin roofs and Subaru Outbacks

The soundtrack of our city

Seattle does not speak Spanglish
It is whiter than the tortilla he pulls
from the Mission package
to set on a pizza stone for flaming

These are when our embers were still lit and ignited
Fingers stained and dripping from tobasco and tomatoes
We stuffed our comfortable mouths as we
picnicked under covers
Licking leftovers from our lips
Too careless to turn down the heat

That was a year ago
I’m in a new city now
still learning to temper my taste buds
with avocado and cuervo

Learning how to tap uncapped Cayenne
instead of dousing with flame
Learning how to not down shots
until you’re a pile of Pico in a stranger's arms

Tasting it on my tongue a breath longer
Reverting back to recipes when needed
For these are just stories of the past too

Tasting onions and peppers cooked careful
Not charred until the smoke
heavy and hazed
sticks in your lungs for a whole year

I’ve now found the tablespoon
The glass measured, not guessed

I am not a woman of methodology
But I do believe that patterns can be broken
Recipes altered
And new afternoons birthed from the flame
of a single and subtle spark.

Day 20: Paradise.

In paradise there are no colors
We do not exist in hues or layers
The lion sleeps under the heaping plume of sky
And secrets only run blood deep

We are the savages

The jaws of rabid animals
Eaten and worn by the wanderings of our past
Now resurrected into present

I find you there

In the field built for choosing
You were the restless one
The naïve and tempted
Coaxed by wet palette promises

Perhaps the forbidden fruit was an orange
Burning her tongue the way acid does
A flame lit by saliva
Extinguished by our always
But we are the smokeless

We carry our lanterns late into the night
And tiptoe back into covers before morning
spotlights our sins
Before time makes another smoke cloud
of our skin and curves

Cradle us like saplings
But let us walk with our heads high and heavy
Find a cage
Then let us sever our way out of it
We are safer in enclosures than open spaces
Seduce us with immortality
then push us off bridges
Suffocate us with mud
We will break through the earth with guns blazing

Burning tigers ignited in your palm
Until the lion is extinct.

Day Half Way There: Love, That Red Disease

Love, That Red Diease
Cherry is the color of love when it is new on bed sheets
and pillowcases
It is the line drawn towards the island
Now so far off my latitude my memory convinces me that

only ocean is there
I listen to its waves through old shells and memories lately
Echoes of the past drawn up like curtains
I’m always looking at things from the inside out
Always convincing myself next season will be better for

waves to wash away foot prints and ride
This is the cycle I am tethered to
The predictability of tides
Weathered and thick with sand and glass
Something as seemingly random as the

location of moon, sun
Patterns that keep us sane or unhinged
Depending what fog you’re sifting through
I’m sifting through memories lately
Through ocean floor carcasses and fisherman boots
Through heart attack grips and pigeon holes
I’m sick with equilibrium exposure and unsure shore
Just waiting for proof to convince me, briefly
That I am still at sea.

Day 14: Don't Be Afraid

Love to Gowri K for this prompt "Don't Be Afraid, Finally We Are." Though I thought my final product was kind of lame, I vowed to stay at it with posting. Here goes a raw attempt at politcal poetry. By Sarah L.

Don’t be afraid of the institution that birthed freedom
We are the Obama loving anti-pat Americorps sleeved
Nation of doggy tails and eyelashes.

Finally we are free.

Don’t be afraid of the grip of patriarchs
Squeezing you to believe that you are
a Cameo silhouette
A faceless monogram

Finally we are more than itemized deductions.

Don’t be afraid of being a martyr

Finally we are more than suicide bombs and ash

Don’t be afraid that alternative is a
sly tongue for reformation
That we can rewrite the buzz words that blanket the past
That flags wave high every day, not just the ones
when it’s convenient to block off streets

Finally we are realizing that rainbows stretch as far as Iowa

Don’t be afraid to declare a state of emergency
as your reason for taking a sick day
There is too much soil to dig typewriter hands in to
Too many words that you must put in this world

Finally we are realizing what cannot be puzzled back
together from a desk chair.

Don’t be afraid to speak loudly
Too loudly
Don’t be afraid to write
Don’t be afraid when granted the opportunity
to open your mouth
Like pliers
Like anchors to hinge awareness on

Finally we are all speaking the same language.

Day Whatever: The Pelicans

Done trying to catch up but back on track. Apologies; this ones from the bell jar.

The Pelicans
When the pelicans brought her back from the rain
She still couldn’t find her knees
Lipstick leaked from her mouth like blood
from his temples
and the grave of mascara under her eyes
spelled hunger

At her best she was wife
Grunge rock diva
Demented mother
Their chaos complimented each other

And now there are pelicans
Piecing together this Iris like
Cinderella’s helpers

She is the gray mannequin of cloud
over the Puget Sound
The dull whisper of depression
When your status becomes widow

The pelicans only gift to offer up
was warmth
A sliver of comfort
A strand of milder climate
A fraction of balance
But even they fight to keep themselves
above water sometimes
Even they are beautiful and broken,
wishing they could pull pistol from his
nicotine stained hands
Instead of pools of thread to piece together this
once porcelain ragdoll
This once odd but unbroken
Strange but secure
Drug-filled bones
once tempered with love

They cannot change the methadone mush of her brain
The mashing misfiring that makes her a rock star
They cannot change the recreational habits of a girl
The dripping beats of mascara
Or her divided past

But the pelicans move her flesh back to life
A beautiful reflection to look at in the mirror
As she pulls her wedding gown out of the closet
Rosey cheeks spinning like tiaraed princess
One last time she gives her breath a chance

And collapses into a lake so deep
not even the Pelicans can find her.

Day 8: The Bread of Poverty

The bread of poverty greets me outside of
Whole Foods on my way home
Tries to sell me Street Sense and
I never see anyone take out a dollar
Not even me
Unless I promise my friends I will
And even then
It sits in the corner of my room collecting dust
Like my tax returns.

The bread of poverty is hiding under freeways
Pulsing through this city like it’s part
of the blueprint
We’ve gotten so good at tucking it away
Inside alleys of new condo buildings
In particular parks where the Central Kitchen van stops
To hand out breakfast
Where no one passes walking to work

It creeps from the park to our front stoop
On nights I pull the door to our complex shut behind me
The bread of poverty has a prosthetic hand that holds a
Starbucks cup outside of Starbucks
and doesn’t say a word
It is in the mushed porridge brain of the women
with bullet hole hair in Dupont
And the still-cold DC nights that
shiver me to sleep.

Day 7: This Is Why You're Fat

She eyed my granola yogurt mixture before the grainy neon
digital lights on the microwave read 9:00 AM
Before my coffee
Before boredom slipped into another poem
Penned slyly in Outlook email

She spoke

Told me her daughter was about my age
about my coloring
about my size
Yes, my daughter has a weight problem
Like you

Like you

Like these are the moments we are told to clutch saliva like an heirloom
And choke on spit scorn teeth that want to scream
LADY.. I’m a size 10
8 on good days
Women like you
Are MY weight problem

Women like you sculpt mannequins out of tear stained pillows
and tell yourself their perfection
Warn pretty girls of blueberry stained smiles
Lips tasting every bite like we never cried tears
after pie-filled bellies

Broken
You craft our hands into delicate munchers
Daydreaming about plates next portion
Week’s next menu
Until we could no longer distinguish hunger
From addiction.

Women like you
taught us what emptiness feels like

The gradual and gnawing pain that grows deeper

in our stomachs
Until we convince ourselves this is what
thin is

Fattening ourselves on the moment
Like indulgence was a playground we’ve
been missing since youth.

Day 6: A Haiku for Passover

Do you think about
The slaves, praying to their gods
to never be free?

Day 5: Write About One of Your Heroes..

In My Other Life
In my other life I actually used my journalism degree
And dug births out of burials
Didn’t care who listened
Just happy my editor 
wasn’t always in my own head
Saying Not Enough
Not Ever Enough

In my other life
I crossed oceans and craved content
Cried when I learned children could be traded like
baseball cards
Gave myself a voice through ink
Instead of microphone
And wasn’t always anticipating the reaction

In my other life
I understood
I was born with a heart that beat steel
So I could report and not react
Write and not respond
And somehow feel like I could do more
Could Always Do More

I used to dream about the stars
About the folks at home draping papers over
steaming morning toast
Instead of burning corneas
Like the burning piles of garbage in Kibera

In my other life
I could tolerate this stench

Catching Up: Day 4

As I said, the computer was at Apple over the weekend. Despite the delay, I prevailed:

A District Discography
U be hipsters and half smokes
Caps on sideways
Fruit-infused tea and french fries
Obama’s image on every facade
So we never again lose this history.  

Madame’s Organ is a clever name for a bar
In Adam’s Morgan
Tryst wishes it could be Seattle
And Big Bear nearly nails it but
I would never walk there alone at night

18th splits my hood from the barillo
and looks much better
with the lights on

I know about the 43
The liberation dance parties
The drum circle in Malcolm X

I wonder whether the pile of blankets at my bus stop
Has a person sleeping under them
And think about how many worlds
exist under the District stars

Day 3

Fact: This is not a new poem but fairly new and performed at the Salt Lines show.
Fact: My computer is being loved on by the lovely (and oh so cute) men of the Pentagon City Apple store and will be out of commission over the weekend. I will catch up on the days on Monday at work.

My tax bracket

Breeds transient men

Looking for women to fix their broken resumes

and pauses between plane rides

They cling to us like life rafts

Couch surfing and begging

for a shore to call home

A place to lay baggage that never seems

to properly unpack

A chest to lay aching heads

that promises to be comfortable

And recession proof

I never knew when I moved to this city that

passing freight trains would be the solace I’d crave

on the other half of my hand hold

The draft only felt after they had moved on

to the next town

I downed shots with boys who promised preaching Obama

Would get them a job in the administration

Men who told me only I knew their next destination

Free spirits moving towards opposite hemispheres

Waiting to spit other tongues with

vocab words in back pockets

Books

Maps

Backpacks

That somehow crowded their bare schedules

where I thought I should be

And somehow

I hold on

Always the obedient anchor

The one that never seems to know when to jump ship

Never seems to notice the moorings thrown from their shell

with a clear warning of momentary

I grasp to it

Ask it to graze my sands and secure

To touch something lost and beautiful

Lost in this ocean

Ask for something that will give me some

Better oxygen

He holds me

Asks me to confirm that we are in fact official

l before asking me if I’m okay

Not knowing where he’ll land in a month

a day

Casually mentions the application he sent to Peace Corps

That morning.

And I rethink my theory on free will

There are just too many damn patterns

But perhaps it is me

I am an impossible pupil in the art of being chill

Never content for waiting for phone calls or next steps

I dream murals out of doodles

Have sleepovers way too quickly

And convince myself that this is all just fodder for poetry

Or romance

Or my own twisted mess of a little black book

Just like every

woman

my age

Right?

I just crave

the chaos
The ruthlessness

The kind of dudes that adhere to no ones schedules

And, mostly, the excuses that come at the end

that have nothing to do with me.

30 Days, 30 Poems: Day 2

Thanks to a little prompt from D. Arrindell:

Where I'm From

Where I’m from parents still spin vinyl on dusty record players

Kitchen counters full of organic, non-perfumed hand soap

Cause the suburbs makes everyone allergic

We’re told not to yell up rooms or down stairs

But listen to TV too loudly

While lazy D bangs everything

but the drumset in the basement

There are crispy leaves falling from firecracker trees

where I’m from

Illuminating the old houses and the pitch black cul-de-sac

While kids play recklessly outside houses with

unneeded alarm systems

And you never hear the Prius coming up the street

where I’m from.

Memories are stuffed in shoeboxes and never albums

We smoke prime times on the hood of our Jetta and

Imagine a night without stars

Hand me downs riding open streets with

Case Logic ripping up

The rear view

30 Days, 30 Poems: Starts... Now

Today at around noon, I recieved an ominous reminder from facebook. I had been tagged in a note from my friend Daemond that read "NaWriPoMo Challenge Day 1." For those of who only speak English, that is National Writing Poetry Month. In April, poets challenge themselves to write 30 poems for all 30 days of the month. Sigh. Though my year long writing venture ended back in February, I am going to try hard to keep this one going. 

This first comes from a prompt on Denise Jolly's myspace whilst I was stalking her before the Salt Lines show; I am an ugly...

I am an ugly adolescent 

Sitting jagged legged, high top

On the front stoop of the school

I am the track star's right fibula

Strained and tired

A rocket exploding

Step by step

I am the P Hall lockers

Ignored dents and ridges

Easily decoded and used

Abused

Like mascara 

On the dance captain's blink

A chiseled jaw of not quite grown men

Standing next to bleachers

Waiting to be counted

I am gym teacher's heart palpitations

Before she has to teach sex ed

I am the kid with the boner

The unadulterated nervousness

of the pixie cut girl who reads Nabakov

I am tears streaming down the face of those

broken

Homecoming

floats

I am the lead in the play

The drum major's final pause as arms rest calm 

at his side

I am just waiting to graduate

This & That

There is a BIG show coming up as part of the Salt Lines tour. Andrea Gibson (former WoWps champ), Denise Jolly (Seattle slam..what), Tara Hardy (Bent Writing, Seattle Slam, general amazingness) and Sonya Renee (Indiv. National Poetry slam) will be performing at The Warehouse on Sunday March 29th at 7pm. And who is opening? DC's own Capturing Fire, including yours truly and 5 other DC poets. Going to be dope. $10. Tickets at door or email Regie Cabico to reserve: regiec@solysoul.com. Come!!

As I've mentioned a few times, this past weekend was PSI's Women of the World poetry slam in Deetroit, Michigan. Rachel McKibbens was named Woman of the World. She is pretty darn bad ass and I was lucky enough to workshop with her last year when she was passing through Seattle to feature in the Grand Slam. Here is her on Def Jam a few years back:

Natalie Illum: A Remember When Feature

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my friend Natalie is less than two weeks away from the Women of the World poetry slam. She has been spitting in venues all over the city in preparation and her stuff is just hot out the oven. A government monkey by day and the most current past president of Mother Tongue, from DC by way of Upstate NY, Natalie Illum:

just cause...

I wish I could write you a poem
that removes the monkey from your back,
A poem that sends the ghosts in your spine
to heaven. But my words are tiny pebbles
in a much larger ocean of sound; they sink
rather than save the drowning.

The monkey wears a heart-shaped locket.
You cannot reach it to steal it back
into your own chest. Inside
the locket is a picture
of your lover, stolen
from a year you can no longer
touch. Such is the nature
of longing; it's always
behind you.

The ghosts are more proactive.
They haunt daylight from your eyelids,
so that every prism is in shadow.
They drink your tears like water, pull
at your scabs like a fresh stabbing
of pain. But your body is not a trench
for some dying calvary. Blink
Harness the sunshine

like Icarus, for a moment,
the ghosts will melt. Borrow
their sheets for wings. Bribe
the monkey with enough
fruit to sweeten its own hunger;
Breath in

your broken locket heart. Thread
muscle through the metal chain of her
leaving. Exchange suicide for more
oxygen.

Now run to every e-mail, letter, postcard,
hug, story of how your words
kept someone else's soul from limbo,
someone else's mind from shatter.
Your true heart is a tether, strong enough
to keep people from plummeting;
from scraping their fists on
mountains of broken ribs

has they reach for Orion.
This too is your legacy. Look up.

The sky is clear tonight.
The metal cage of your heart
is pumping something that sounds
like music; the ghosts have stopped
invading the marrow of you. The Lover
you carry within you. If the monkey
returns, fill your fist with pebbles.
Throw.

Believe that you will make an impact.
Write it down as a wish, like this poem
for you.

Capturing Fire

For the past month, I have been spending my Monday nights with the wonderful people of Capturing Fire, a workshop of DC poets led by Sparkle's own Mr. Regie Cabico. The nine of us gathered for two hours once a week to write, look at a s-ton of amazing poems and workshop each others pieces. 

And, in the the spirit of Sparkle, we talked about sex. A lot. I honestly often left class more hot and bothered than is apropos for a Monday night.

Anyone who knows me well, knows this is a subject I talk about. A lot. But for some reason it's never translated into poems. I've never written an 'Erotica Poem' in the purest sense, mostly because I feel it comes out trite and disjointed; never the message I'm trying to convey. Still not there yet on a great piece, but it's all about the journey, no? For now, the beginning of something that could be. Based on the prompt of 50 things that turn you on.

beards & boys with a social justice bend

air blown in my ear, even if it’s the accidental
aftershock of a whisper
my face being held by hands larger than my own
built up kisses that feel like they belong
under bleachers

the smell of almond
the taste of beer on your breath
dancing
being pulled in closer
dancing
because this is our element
dancing
because carefree is sexy
deliberate
the first raw attempt at a handhold
mystery

making eyes
for hours
at the black cat

compliments
knowing something others don’t know
knowing something exactly eight other women know
shared showers

hole sings Malibu live
shane on showtime

visual
talkative
messy

the smell of sweat & nature
your sleeping breathe in my ear

rum & diet & a dance floor

Chayay

At 25, I learned that I had grown into a thrashing toddler

Teeth biting down hard on the fist of anyone
who called me girl
Crooked
An oceanliner not yet sunk
but always looking for the next coast
I learned what beautiful looked like
Could hear the Atlantic calling me
back to its waves so I let it
Lived for weekends and solitude
And often became jealous
of my own life.

At 22, I learned about rain and poetry
And the medley of the two that makes my heart pulsate
On nights when they bounce off concrete in chrous
Climbed new heights with fists thrashing clouded air
Caught a fish
Made my apartment into chaos after loved left the city
I was just learning what alive feels like.

At 18, I took shots with my friends to
celebrate Trey’s birthday
We were just sharing in the groove
Slept in southern mud
Read more than my brain’s stamina
could keep up with
Called everyone my best friend
And learned that the Midwest’s drone
was rubbing off on me
And I let it.

At 16, my car and my voice took flight at the same time
I found warmth in the spotlight
Read a book that made me question the girls around me
Questioned every boy around me
and that first one just a year later
I tucked those thoughts in the back of my books
Became the English teacher’s pet
And danced on lakes at sunrise.

At 12, I realized that being fat in middle school was
really going to suck.
So I became alternative instead.
Broke through locker-walled wombs
with Adidas kicks.
J had my back on the tennis courts after school.
Taught me how to share smoke
through a paper towel holder.
Back when Slurpies were just 75 cents
And boys were just people too
And girls only knew your tolerable secrets.

At age 8, my brother and I built sandcastles out of
make believe in the front yard and I
Never understood why Beatrice thought
Ramona was such a pest
Until space was something I needed
But didn’t have the words to claim yet
So I curled up next to books and invisible rocket ships.
Hoping to find myself in them.

At age 4, I knew who I was
Drew pictures of princesses and played
Hide and Seek with my Dad
in our townhouse
Listened to our parents thunder in the kitchen and knew
that would be our forever lives
Like glued-together chaos was a life we hadn’t chosen yet.
But knew we could claim like we were old enough to
possess anything of our own.
Except our fort built daily out of blankets and chairs.

Busboys and Poets: Tomorrow Night!

Ladies and gents-

Tomorrow night, Friday February 13th, I will be slamming at Busboys and Poets (on 14th between U and V) at 11pm (I'll be there at 10pm to sign up and 10:30 is a good time to get there to ensure a seat). Mostly giving my friend Natalie Illum a little friendly competition before she heads out to her second bout of Women of the World (WOW) slam in Detroit.

Don't worry. She'll kick my ass.

Spoken Word.

Break me open with your words
Capture the flame in your mouth
Spit it out like a dragon
Cremate me

Burn me with your verse so I can
squish the word on your tongue
Before you lick me with it

I want to be licked

Like a child’s first carnival ride
Spinning like tires on dark concrete

It’s summer in the city in February
Drum beats bass life around the park and I want you
to whisper what this means
Always lost in this place between cerebellum and saliva
Shape it for me.

Craft the warm air and cigarette ash and perceived timelessness
Of this afternoon
Into tangible
Let it well up in my throat so I will remember to
choke on this memory later.

I need your dragon flames and carnival rides
Your cracked lenses and chipped voice
Inching on taste buds
Like hips creeping up to drum beats
I need something that tastes more alive for a change.

So break me
Don’t be afraid of what might thump from your chest
I’ve swum with mermaids in tar lagoons and
picked saccharin from the teeth of small children
Don’t let the prison of spit be your excuse

Don’t excuse the candidness of voice with apology
Set it free
Bring us closer to understanding
with iron cast words
and apologies

Cremate me
Beat me like drums

Give me a reason to want
To return to dust.

Speaking of Apologies, My Favorite...

Bassey Ikpi's "Apology to My Unborn:"

The Hardest Poem I Have Ever Written

This was beyond tough. Thanks to James D for forcing it out of me.

Apology

There are no words to cover braces coiled teeth

Spitting adolescent angst
War wounds of middle school warfare
You wore
Like you had walked the halls yourself
Like a warrior

When the sun bore you a daughter you knew someday she

Would bloom
Like turmoil
Backlash not understood
But you braced for misunderstanding
like a viking

Grinned and bore the pain of child’s
Curled lips or
Unsettled restlessness.

I was always the restless one
Never tolerant of idle
I brought light into the house like pixie dust
Put on skits for house guests and
Played fire engine with the tree in the front yard

Giggles filled the hallways while you clung to

every last laugh
Never on the inside of the joke
Never one of the girls
Though secrets and heartaches passed

notes through our hallway
Never scribbling the needs of hands veined with
Child and husband bearing.

And me
Illiterate to notes etched in cupboards after bedtime
Like my consciousness was limited to
daily explosion between temples
The thunderstorm of 14 that crashes down

on the house like a
screaming cyclone
And you
Always the last remaining ship after the waters had settled.

There are no words to scream adult guilt into the
inherent selfishness of daughter
I’m not sure my body could take anyone

being as mean to me as I was to you then

In those days of misdirected personality
And misguided attention
In those days when turmoil crashed

through our kitchen like neighbor’s dogs
sniffing for something bleeding and torn

to sink their teeth into

I cannot apologize
I cannot find words that say

I wake up sweaty with nightmare
Of my someday child
ripping through the house like a torrent rainstorm

I want to tell her I will be the harbor
Dig my feet into sand and wait
Bracing for the storm of her forgiveness.

Gauntlet: Thrown

I've been writing lately. A lot. This holiday season was the first I haven't traveled in years and somehow I found myself in our living room, writing veraciously like a boy scout trying to start a fire. Just go with it. 

This holiday season also brought a challenge from the one who can always push me in my writing, Mr. Daemond Arindell. He invited me to a facebook Poem-A-Day 2009 Group to write a poem everyday for the next year. Do I think I'll last the whole year? No sir. But the motivation to post each day, the inspiration from the others on the challenge and the informality of the poems themselves makes it something I've been looking forward to. At least for the past 10 days.

Finally, today I wrote one of the best poems I've written in a long time. I'm actually just super thrilled with this piece in a way I haven't been in awhile. No prompt or title, just gave myself time to make something out of thin air....

Most days, I wake up writing

Grinding my teeth like typewriter keys for thoughts
Buried in my head like they’ve been stewing overnight
Like heavy eyelids are coriander for the curry
So I sleep on it

Try to keep my brain from seeing this as anything
more than a poem

I see rain clouds in your confidence
But you tell me it’s tired.
And I accept.

Knowing we are the few that dream in metaphors and rain clouds
Knowing
not of a simple morning
a simple postcard,
a simple heartbreak
But rather the earths frictionless canvass cracking open like
jagged lipstick on light bulbs
A lazy head nod cocked to another day
Opening the backlit edges of clouds like motion
And we let it.

Like boomerang ping pong balls of expectation
Poems
The size of postage stamps just to tell me you wish I was there
And I do.

Like the night my rhythm came to a screeching halt
Turntable’s heart attack causing one monotonous scratch
Across the inside of my lungs
Like air was an electricity only you possessed
And I was powerless.

Like wishing the pen had power
Or even the powdered dust perched on the inside of my mouth
If I knew vivid came at such a price
I would have put this down long ago.

Given it to you.

Told you that some days you’ll wake up writing
Cursing inertia like back aches
Feel wrists cracking like marble chewed molars
You won’t remember what you once thought insane was
You’ll scream

Wondering what time of day it was
The moment your mind made the universe
So explosive.