Throwing in the Towel…

This is a spoken word poem that I wrote for myself to perform at my Voice and Diction final. Costume included: white button up, black apron, and black tie. And I'm sure I wore pants.

To all the people to whom I lied to make this evening possible:

I’m sorry

 I quit.

When I get like this, it’s like there’s no stopping me

When I get like this it’s like the great monster of “RAWR! COMMITMENT!”

Tears open my left clavicle and shouts: There’s just some things you don’t talk about!

Well, fuck that.

The sanctity of marriage be damned

when a grandma can’t bring herself to leave a grandpa

for molesting a daughter

who would eventually become my mother

whom my father never kept a promise to,

moved on to thicker,

younger

pastures

and forgot to leave the housekeeper out of it….

And you wonder why I don’t believe in marriage.

Me

Who’s sitting on a toilet wondering why you didn’t call me like you said you would

Because your phone died

And because after 2 years you still don’t know my number by heart

My number that is

My voice at the other end

My voice and so much more

My voice, which I force to speak upon the swamp thing that festers beneath my clavicle

D’you hear me!?

I quit!

I quit the world that must not see

Must not know

How I am broken

Or sealed

Or hurting

Or hiding the fact that I didn’t go into either of my jobs tonight

Though I was called.

Instead I sat on my couch

Like a slob and a quitter

But how can I quit

When recession is advertised in every window in every shop that offers free meals to kids on Sundays

I work two jobs

And school full time

Social life?

Are you alive?

Free time equals 30 minutes a week during which I must shave my legs

So don’t wait up for me at the coffee shop

Because I have to home brew now

No quick stop at a friend’s

No stroll down to the west end of the street where the sun sets in all its glory

And orange pearlescence over the lazy transverse mountain range

And you see - I don’t even know what that means

Don’t even see the color orange in the sky because I have forgotten

What the sunset can mean to a person who has forgotten

That the most beautiful things in life

Are usually free.

Me

Who presides over her student-sized checkbook

Which looks a lot more like a debt-book

And begs about as much as my roommate’s cat for attention.

Me

Who slips between skins

Like a chameleon through colors

Though with considerably more effort

I step out of the schmoozer and into a costume that says

“Hi, I touch your dirty plates

I scrape your half eaten rack of ribs into the trash can

I drop your extra ramekin of ranch onto the tile floor

I watch it shatter into fourteen pieces that Jose picks up for me

Because the noise has just made me dumb”

But that isn’t what consciously passes through your mind when we talk

It is what isn’t said

But resounds loudly in my ears.

I want to befriend you; you’d give me more money, wouldn’t you?

Me

Who delivers your drinks effortlessly to your table

Spilling only on my own hands

Which are still wet and I

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is normal

so nobody notices that my apron is darker in some places

So nobody notices that I tremble only slightly

when the whole of me screams and twists from the inside out

To walk out that door

And into the orange glow of fading light

And fading warmth

And fading promises…

And I quit.

Quit festering. Quit pestering. Quit with the dishes with the PRETENSES

And I quit this “RAWR COMMITMENT!”

And I quit this.. (throws necktie)

and I quit this… (throws apron)

and I quit ‘When I get like this”

and this is the point where I am reminded by Debra that stress is released 3 ways

Crying

Laughter

And orgasm

And speaking of which... (exits)

Inspiration

I've been noticing the feeling it takes out of me to sleep long hours. I don't want to do it anymore. Love hours as opposed to short hours. Nothing seems to matter as much as it used to when compared to the world at large. In accepting what is, I find that I can breathe easier. People I care about have said a lot of bullshit, though not all of it bull, and not all of it shit.

I just feel that to give my all, I need a place to fall back into when I've spent all I have. I don't want to give all of me away. Nor do I want to give half of me. I like me too much. And I need to say that on days I actually feel it.

I feel like I'm collecting the scattered pieces that I've strewn all about. Strength is not about physical prowess, it is indomitable will. Thanks, Ghandi. I appreciate your words. But you're a skinny man in a robe, of course you'd say that. I think strength is all of the above. Indomitable will can be taken as stubbornness. And what if you have that will, but lack wisdom? Then are you strong, or just weak-minded and reacting from fear?

Be Human

So.

It starts, again.

I don't know where to begin.

Though I feel like I am living on an alternate plane of existence, I know I am still right here.

My brain simply is lazy, and does not want to consider the implications of my reality.

This is where my stubbornness becomes an asset; I no longer want to to experience the pain of disunity so I will not let myself avoid the unification of my past with my present.

I accept that all of me exists, and that all of me is on purpose and meaningful to me, and pain slides out of me.

I retain the courage to continue to look inward, no matter what I think I'll find, and what I see is usually not as scary as I thought.

As a human, I can only be so complicated.

I must uncomplicate myself.

A student in class today (whom I will not pretend I understand completely) did a lot of talking, and not a lot of listening. It felt he was projecting all of his bullshit onto me, and he tried to make it fit where it didn't.

And I said my truth, and left it at that. I didn't need to engage him into any more depth of conversation.

Abandonment

This is a theme that spans lifetimes.

I am reminded of what begets expectation.

It is a series of needly points inside the left portion of my chest.

It cannot be soothed by the skin of another.

It cannot be moved by the voice of a brother.

It cannot be saved by the tire in my soul, or the limp in my bowl, or the stop of my roll.

It cannot be stopped by the words of a friend

Or the turn of a bend

Or the light at the end.

It seems that to mend

It

Or send

It

Away,

Would be to rend

It

From me forcibly.

Or lend it to powdery installments of sanity,

To make sense of it briefly.

I've been shut out

Broken down

Left to drown

In my own toxicity

Care not for a sponge

Not a dollop of ignorance

This bliss we all fight to maintain

It brings us all down

Not to date, but to frown

At our own capabilities therein.

And here in my mind

I get scared all the time

That someone'll find

That

It

Has

Never left me.