A few weeks ago, my fellow interns and I spoke about Slam Poetry and what it has become. We spoke about slam team coaches who cause their members to relive the trauma of the stories they share on stage in order to maximize on points. They were surprised to hear about my story of when I competed and lost to a woman who recited her suicide note for a local slam. I’ll be honest, for a long time, I lost my love for the art due to this. Often I would come into events and hear the most gruesome of tales being relieved for a slam score of perfect 10’s and it makes me question what is poetry anymore. Feeling like this (along with other issues I faced in Slam Poetry Culture) caused me to write this exact poem back when I was on my last year as a youth poet, preparing for Urban Word NYC’s Grand Slam Finals:

Respiration

Will it take for me to become a martyr words for you understand my craft?

To die before my time; leaving behind a casket lined with the pages of my life

Explaining the purpose of my sacrifice

Why I’m not coming home

Why I spoke in silent script

Why stages became the battlefield of my soul’s demise

 

My abilities are not determined by scores

But to be as raw as blistered lips on a nudist

To move an audience to flood like tears

Brining sinning hands to Onomatopoeia prayers

Prayers in my words; words fossilized relics of backbone, teeth

Of the breathing deceased, my body

Being reincarnated from a decaying casket to a flower bed

 

There have been days when I did not want to wake up

Did not feel worthy to respirate

Wanted to rip my lungs apart to finally

Rest In Peace

Make noose out this Jesus piece  to lynch my breath away

 

But found strength in the word to inspire these words

“Maktub” forged from Illmatic Alchemy to form gold

By God’s Son It Was Written

Giving out my soul each time I step to oppressed mics

Having the mind of Huey P trapped inside a Sara Baartman body

Let them stare at this body, let them mock it

But one person from the audience will find the beauty of my nudity

My ability is not based off of scores, awards

But to be a prayer’s answer

I sacrifice my body so someone here will know that they are not alone

I sacrifice my soul each time I’m in front of oppressed mics, so they will not have too

-WIB