Crossing State Lines.

While trekking up a mountain, some don't have the stomach to look back down and see how far they climbed. I have to remind myself of that often, so this is me celebrating along the way.

Last night was my first poetry performance in a different state and it felt great. It was reassuring to meet other passionate people and network organically off the strength of art (the best way to do it).

My set was dedicated to LOVE with a couple poems of the conventional sense of romance, a break-up poem, and a poem about self-love relating to being an emotional eater.

Along with all that, there were great displays of fashion, poetry, singers, rappers, and a DJ that was in his bag the entire night.

Justin Callender

Cuphasol

Mike D. Joseph

Michelle Montolio

Amario The Artist (DJ)

Definitely felt like another step in a good direction. 'Til next time!

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Also, here's one of the pieces I performed. The footage is a little raw but I'm here to give y'all as much of me as I can.

"Halloweentown."

Taps into my inner child and speaks on self-image insecurities that used to be much larger than they are now as an adult.

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Halloweentown.

On my 10th birthday,

I stopped celebrating disguises.

I felt it happen.

A frozen chill scratching up my rib cage,

like freshly manicured tips of chalk on stone blackboards,

while peers explained: it’s heat that rises.

Tell that to the abandoned dollhouses I played with by proxy,

decorated by proximity,

unaware the walls were menstruating

as I drew fake blood on my vampire face,

I was raised by a village of women.

I learned early that my masks

weren’t fit to hold a candle next to theirs.

And yet,

like a Jack O Lantern,

I carved the brightest smile,

shoved chunks of pumpkin guts down into my ship-wrecked torso,

letting freezing heat rise

as a tornado of embarrassed shame,

when my friend walked up to me

and she said:

“I guess we’re the fattest kids in our class”.

Not with words but with

a Scooby-Doo paw offering of snacks.

A thicket of olive branches we used

to build a lunch table with enough support

to withstand the weight of our childhoods.

On my 10th birthday,

I stopped celebrating criticism disguised as platitudes.

“You’re not fat, you just love to eat”,

“A growing boy needs his food”,

“You’re just big-boned-ed”.

My skeletons danced inside me

without my body’s consent,

trying to make leg room,

trying to bike their way across ballrooms,

trying to push adult hands at family parties away from my handlebars,

trying to sew confidence onto my sucked-in stomach like Frankenstein‘s monster,

trying to stop feeling like a werewolf ate my self-esteem’s homework,

trying to stop feeling like a monster,

trying to defrost the chill up my spine when I changed clothes in gym class,

trying to imagine

it’s not embarrassed shame

but it’s my soul giving me a hug

to remind me

that

heat

rises.