I came across this video while researching performance poetry for a competition I’m involved in at school, and I was floored by how truthful and beautifully written and performed it is.
what do i dream of, while i’m lying alone in my bed,
swallowed by the darkness,
comforted only by the branches whispering into my window
i can’t fall asleep.
i see the faces, of all the girls
who have slipped through the barrier of our planet
see them crying, see them screaming
see them gasping and thrashing
i see them so well,
it is almost as if the images are being projected onto the dark ceiling
and i can’t fall asleep.
the feeling suffocates me, grabs me
its strong fingers tearing at my skin,
letting the darkness get to me.
my ears buzz, my throat starts closing
and i squeeze my eyes as tight as i can
knowing if i let tears stream down my flushed face,
it’s a sign …
Blazing stink of an august sidewalk. My fingers my eyeballs are grey with the newsprint of this morning’s sins and a heavy shamed sickness knowing I am born with Certain Inalienable Rights: to have legs. To speak read write words on a page to love without fearing the circle of empty faces bodies hating reasonless shoulder to shoulder, sure in blamelessness hands grope for stones. Would they break my glasses first? Or my breasts, badge of my station, proof in the flesh of my wickedness. The fashion models have blood in their hair.
They told me I was my own to give or not. They loosed my foremothers from their ovens handed them ballots and birth control But I was created unequal The girls who I was not born learn …
Willing!
supposed to be,
Mute
supposed to be
compliant
supposed to be
Sacrificing
supposed to be
Motherly.
-at least, what I AM supposed to be.
pure
I guess, supposed to be
I am not
what I am —-
[supposed to be]
if I am not this girl,
what can I be?
…
