Tag: slam poem

Solo in a Hotel

I spent the night alone in a hotel

Deleting pictures of my ex

I looked for meaning in their face

But all I could see was a mess

And all I could hear were the shitty

Little things they had to say

About my friends and all my work

It’s better it turned out this way

I never knew my heart could break

From someone’s personality

But I decided it was best to be 

The image that they made of me

You’re too intense it’s not enough

When all I wanted was good morning

I guess a text was just too much

Or else I’d get their scorning

And they were way too blind

Too ignorant

Said I broke up without warning

But if they paid attention they would have known

By just my face that morning

It sucks to think they won’t be loved

In the way that I could give

But no one comes between my friends

And tells me how I’m supposed to live

When we hung up that night

I didn’t know what would come next

But goddamn it felt really good 

To say my worth with my whole chest

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Green Thumb

Green Thumb

Should have walked away when
we started comparing scars,
when you told me time and again
about the same one on your knee.
When we ran out of things to say
and you never liked small talk anyway
but our candles still burned
and you turned your wick away from me.
Should have stopped when you said
I was too intense, not a compliment
but a challenge to make me small.
Should have thought again when
I asked you to be happy for me
and you said it would take away
From all you wanted to do for you.
Unresolved and sad.
I still fell in love.
Could blame it on the stars and say
it’s because I’m a scorpio.
But it’s because I like to garden
and watch things grow.
I guess I always fall in love with potential.

Untamed

In my grandmother’s kitchen my mother told me,

You will never get a boyfriend 

with your hair parted down the middle.

Her cigarette burned down as I burned down to a pile 

of inferiority. 

Clearly, naively, innocently, I listened.

I heeded the woman 

whose hair was frozen in Aquanet since 1984

that my romantic endeavors were reliant on where my hair 

fell from the top of my head 

and how delicately my hair sat atop my shoulders 

and how I should probably brush out the curls because they look messy 

You look messy. 

Sloppy. 

Knotty. 

Untamed. 

For years, I concerned myself with the aesthetics of my coils

rather than the intention of my character and the intentions that fell

from the bottom of my heart

and how loud my heart beat on my sleeve 

and how unimportant my hair was but I could not see —

Could not see past my hair 

past what I needed to be for my mother

in order to be loved by another. 

That I was raised to be thin 

to diet 

to move 

to try 

to critique what I was 

and not who I am.

To be thin and pretty God forbid I be a fat child and love my middle part —

Because we need to be thin and pretty.

My mother was thin and pretty

and blonde.

And tall.

And had sky-high hair and box dye status.

As an adult I could be fat and pretty but not pretty fat and ugly

and only after I found someone to love my hair placed delicately to the side 

could I be fat and pretty or ugly and thin 

because at least I’d be thin. 

I could let myself go only after

I placed my intentions and the messy heart on my sleeve

delicately to the side.

I could unravel like my mother did and stand behind the kitchen island 

and treat it as a podium and tell my daughter, 

her granddaughter 

You must change before you are loved.

So I walked the line of my middle part of

black and white —

Of judgment — 

Of hope someone would fall in love 

with my placement and one day I woke up too many years later and realized

This. Was. Dumb.

My hair coils and curls and speaks for itself

and spoke for me before I found my voice.

My body moves and grows and shrinks like my mane

and I am ever-changing

and always speaking.

Some days I may feel thin and pretty

or  fat and ugly and now instead of dwelling 

I release my hair 

I appreciate the entropy

and whoever can love that entropy will love everything 

I’ve come to love about me.

Dragon Woman

Smoke coiled through the seams of the car

and we sat in the back in the haze while classic rock blared

into your ears and you forgot for a moment that you were a mother,

that you were my mother. 

Loosely strumming on the steering wheel,

palms and thumbs drumming.

Music maker child maker — 

I wanted to be just like you.

I wanted to be like you until the sun went down because 

when the sun went down the bottle came out

and there was dracula — 

And the werewolf — 

And you.

You damaged, fermented 

Dragon Woman with hands that curled

to knotted tree branches and poison spat out of you.

We hid 

I hid in my closet until the lightbulb died.

And I realized I never wanted to be like you.

But you taught me so much.

You taught me to be afraid 

(I was afraid of my mother) 

So I had to be strong  

And you taught me to be strong and to question you

Question everything — 

Go against you.

Your vicarious wishes of who I should be

who I was — 

But I didn’t have a fucking clue.

And when the morning came that I watched breath escape 

your chapped lips for the final time you somehow taught me right there to look Death straight in his face 

and fear nothing because I already knew you, Dragon Woman.

And I don’t want to be you but I came from you

you created me — me.

I am the daughter of patricia — 

Of teased hair and electric blue eyeliner — 

Of wild coolness.

I grew up at the altar of an ‘03 mustang

With empty diet coke cans and Bic lighters on hand.

Bic lighters everywhere 

fire always on hand.

And you drummed your primal ancient animal skin beat to the chant in your head — 

Do no harm. Take no shit.

The final lesson of my mother.