Скачать или смотреть Spoken Word Poetry | Gratitude

The minute I made the team
My mouth was overgrown with words like “thank” “luck” “privilege“ and “gratitude”
Gifted with the burden of
defining our “home”
For people who have never been there.
Carrying it
On my tongue,
in the formula of my sweat.
So that Georgia heat
only serves to bring out
the Iowa in me.

Defining “home” isn’t about me
but where i come from
All 56 thousand square miles
and the people still there.
My city made a 10,000 dollar investment in my voice
To speak on behalf of my people
to spread the love they’ve cultivated in me
How am I supposed to get this right?
When there are poets with stories so heavy I couldn’t hand them to you
I can’t tell you what it’s like to be homeless
I haven’t felt the ache of abandonment
I’ve never known the self-blame of sexual abuse
I don’t deal drugs to survive
these are the ones left behind
The weight of their stories is crushing my fingertips
to the page
I’m worried my words won’t be good enough
My friends deserved this more
some one else could do this better
but they aren’t here
You may see 4 of us on stage but we stand for 32,396 des moines youth
demanding to be heard
so let me express some “gratitude”
some “respect”
some “acknowledgement”
let me define “home” with “love”
with “left behind”
Because no matter how many voices we try to replicate
how many lives we pretend to live,
Some are silenced by our selfishness
Because we forget this festival isn’t for us
Not a chance offered to everyone.
This is a privilege
What is a one in thirty shot in Des Moines is a one in a thousand in New York.
Are we sure that every “line”
every “story”
every “truth”
still speaks for every poet who should be beside us
would our poems be the same if our team mates were different
We forget to listen,
To see the battlefield through the eyes of it’s soldiers
This poem is for
Lela, may our words be loud enough to pierce the prison glass between you and your mother
Bao, keep marching to the rhythm of your ancestors steps
Montesha, your mother’s disease is a tragedy you don't carry alone
Jahleel, you cradles survivors between your lullabies
Russhaun, your voice carries the cage of your mother’s addiction.
This performance is for
Evan, your color is not a crime
Davonte, you are not your father’s choices
Jevion, your voice is the only weapon you need.
Echo, continue to lay your abuse on the alter
Ethan, Choking on stage means that there are pieces still trapped in the closet of your stomach
Know that the dialogue you add to our conversations
will bleed into the ones we have 900 miles from home
That you will irrevocably be a part of us
These words are for
Sabrina, Brenda, Linda, Jaya, Hassanah, Jamie, Preshous, Christian,
Poetry is not a talent,
it’s a practice
Remember, the best poets started with
under my shirt is my skin,
under my skin is my heart
under my heart is this movement
a garden that keeps growing until it
pushes through the gates of your jaw
Like flowers blossoming despite darkness
Give us your seeds
and we will bring back your fruit