Blue Light Cafe Performance Piece - 11/17/2010

I recited this poem at my first open mic production. It was difficult to do; I'd written it two nights before and was a trembling ball of nerves. I hope the words hold weight in written form.

I used to be whole
But now I'm mixed up broken
catatonic
Schizophrenic
Bipolar disordered
Tone-deaf
And Cacophonous
Sound-bitten and recorded parts
of a picture
That's bigger than me

I am not just flesh and bones
And bitter tastes
Like regret
With the linger of worn-down soles of tennis shoes that just sits on my tongue

I am silence so loud you can't hear your own thoughts
I am running through bodies like hearts and souls are obstacles in my way
That can be stopped
I am re-giving the gift of
Silence
Broken
Catatonic
Mixed up
And
Cacophony

I am victim
But I am not so far gone as to forgive my mother and tell her the thief she lies with
Has crept into my woman cave and sought out my bits of silver and gold
The good stuff
My bittersweet fruit
And now I'm just the hollowed rind that's been left out in the sun with no juice

I am not victim enough to
Forget that once upon a time when
Daughters were just pink little dolls
With ribbon and fancy
And after school play was much like a tea party
I wasn't too different
But just a much different piece in a puzzle I wasn't ready to put together
I wasn't ready to be
Broken

I am tired of hurdling
Having to scrape my knees for attention
Tired of pretending that with only a little glue I'll be good as new
A porcelain doll that's just pretty without any cracks
I'm a Humpty Dumpty character and all the king's men can't put my sanity back
Can't put my childhood back in it's place

It's not like picking and tossing things
You picked through me and tampered with things
You put my silence with cacophony
Put my good-as-new with my dirty things
put my catatonic with my manic things

Nigga, you came and molested me

You put my silence with cacophony
You dipped your meddling fingers in my pretty chocolate chip cookie stash
And tried to buy back my loving affection with this poor man's type of cash
That certain kind of money
That buys those streetwalker's kinds of souls

You took your big fat crayons and colored all on my page
Outside my lines you took me
And you forgot to put me back

But I will not be a victim, anymore
I cannot be a victim, anymore
I'll never be your victim, ever more
I have always been
Much bigger than that