Eye Shadow

~Performed this at Tri-District Slam~

She told me poetry just wasn't “her thing.”

But the way she said it made poetry sound like a color of eyeshadow that was only flattering if you were born with the right eye color

Like I was born with a poet's eye and hence smeared poetry on my eyelids was a shade only I could pull off

That I could wake up in the morning and say “I think a little Shakespeare sparkle would look good.”

Or was she suggesting that I don't wear lipstick because I already have sonnets stained on my lips?

But when I look through my makeup bag of dried out chap stick and caked glimmer I've never used, I don't see any bottles or compacts labeled “Prose, apply daily, twice if teenage angst breaks out.”

There's this saying that inside of everyone is the soul of a poet who died young

and I don't know what saved mine but I know she's isn't my substitute for a bottle of foundation

rather, she is my foundation.

Because Poetry isn't a way to powder color into my cheeks or pretend

I have a fairer complexion than I do

Yes, it's a way I view the world

but it's also a lifestyle I choose

I'm not getting on stage because I have a physical addiction to complaining in poetic form or I have a broken heart that oozes out lyrical love sick words promising to soak our feet in salty poetic tears

That's not how I view poetry

I once sat in a room of short haired, warm skin, soft souled old woman in a closed library as they taught be Japanese haiku and haibon

that room was the poetry

At lunch I like to pick wild flowers and weave garlands during science

and my favorite food is my mother's matzo ball soup

Every morning I see fog roll over Mount Tam like an ancestral dragon in the mist

When I look around me, I see, feel, taste, become poetry

Because for me, Poetry is love

my personal chicken soup for the soul, my soul cooking for the world

Poetry is the way I love

love of the idea that humanity still has hope as long as yellow flowers peek their petaled heads from dew heavy dawns

Poetry is my mom's sunny hair and sneaking outside late at night to talk to my favorite stars

their twinkled replies

The way I make sense of bruises, tears and broken history

by finding the poem in shards of glass, deserted dreams and scraped knees

It isn't a magical formula, a tube of cosmetics I apply to make myself look intelligent

It's just the weight of worn textbooks on my back

the copy of Little Woman I dropped in the bathtub 3 times

I don't have an amazing story

Just a lot of love

Love of others, of myself, of beauty, of words

Even when I'm yelling, even when I'm slamming words into your face

Poetry is the idea that broken emotion soaked thoughts sewn together can create something beautiful

And that's why, for me, poetry is love

So when I say, “I wrote you a poem, may I read it please?”

all I'm really saying is

I love you.

Being

I am built of pasts
all compounded to one me
I am tears I shed
the bruises that sculpted me
I am built of matzah ball soup
and grandma's hugs
the taste of lemons on your tongue
with a scoop of sugar
I am the aleph-bet
a living history of my people
I am a girl
defined by her heart
judged by her actions
I am the flower in my hair
weaved into life
growing strong and bright
but delicate
and in danger of being picked
I am the pencil pressed notes
The hours I pour mental energy in
till there is no time left for
anything else
I am a deep slumber
at peace with vivid dreams
but plagued with nightmares
I am the stars
Shining
but my light hits earth years after it first shone
burning out of gas
falling star
shooting star
I am like no one else
but every wide eyed-owl child in a sea of faces
just a grain of sand between your feet
a shell in your hands
I am a Jew
Russian, German
tainted with the blood of history
cursed by the sin of men
carrying burdens forced by no fault of my own
generational traits I will have to face
parts of me sculpted by acceptance
built on cracking lies
I am an old building
strong and regal once
but a fading beauty
needing repair
I am the ocean
wild and free
the stallion in the field
I am my past, present and future
I am every moment that ever happened
all leading up
to another human
just another me
Just another Inkspinner

spinning out prose to save the threads of my humanity

Grapes

I couldn't sleep last night.
I sat outside under the stars and starred up at their flickers between the trees.
I don't understand what I did or why I lost you.
It's like the Little Prince and his rose- I will always wonder if I drew the sheep wrong, if I let my rose get eaten
Did I draw my sheep wrong? Did I let a baobab tree in where it shouldn't be?
I don't know why I thought I had the right to trust.
I never trust.
But I did.
And somehow I don't regret it.
I will never regret you.
I'm not forever young as I would like to believe, but I pray to either feel my skin turn old or
 back to the soft baby skin
It's funny, I want to be any age but this.
I want to understand. I'm trying, my dear. I never wanted this pain, I never wanted you to feel this pain.
And I wonder if you feel it.
Feel how I feel and felt, sitting thin clothed under the night sky, watching for the Little Prince, but mostly  wondering if maybe I can see you.
send you a message through the California clouds
I don't know what you think of me now, but I hope you think of me.
And I hope you see this.
He told me not to talk to you, so I won't. Because I still love you, and I know love doesn't stir up strife.
I never meant, I never tried to create this.
I'm trying, I promise.
I've promised before, and every word I say
I meant
I mean
I will mean again.
I love you.
I don't want to say goodbye and I don't want to let you go.
I understand I have to-but know I never really will.
Ever
You will always be in my words, my heart, my prayer, my eyes
You told me to be strong and I'm trying
I'm trying
No matter what you think of me now, I want you to stay strong, to know you're beautiful-puffy hair, those hands and large whites of your eyes.
You are so beautiful.
So beautiful there were moments I looked at you and I almost believed in luck.
that I was so lucky
Lucky to have someone who believed in me no matter what, you told me I was worth it always.
You're worth it
always
I don't know if you'll see this but I want you to know
You'll go to Yale, Stanford, Harvard
You'll go to the sun, to the moon, to the ends of the earth
you, you'll touch the stars
you'll change the world
You start fire
you'll create floods
You will be the force of nature
It hurts that I won't be there besides you, that I can't say goodbye
that I may never know if you wanted to say goodbye to me
But I hope one day I can say hello.
Because I will never stop loving you.
I promised that before
and I promise it now.
And I never break a promise.

This Is How It Works-White Lion

This is how it works


 This is for when we first lifted our faces to the sky and swallowed the snow that winter day. Small and bundled, red noses and cheeks. I once made you go first on the sleigh, and watched you freefall into a snow covered tree. I used to finish your sentences, with my words, what I thought you should mean. I still do that sometimes. I still lecture you, not because you're smaller than me now, but because I can't get my words out just right.


Funny. I've never had any trouble getting my words out. But words are stickiest when they are meant to cover the ones closest to us. I don't always know what to say to your shag mop hair and freckles and big blueberry eyes. We are so alike, yet so different and so set about. Fire and Ice. Fire and Fire.  We have the same determined drive you know. We have the same confidence, sarcastic, often cocky but more self assured than anything. We are both as stubborn as our father, as willed as the oceans crashing around us. We assume a cape of quiet and wear it as a shield till we break out in booming voices. 


 I was always the parrot costume squawking at you in your white lion costume. I sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in that talent show and you pretended to snore on stage, in your zipped up lion fur. We always were performers. Sometimes I yell at you to get my way and then play my I'm tired, I had a bad day, you started it card and come out as shrew to get my way again. I'll yell at you again, when you try to open my door tonight. Tonight for the millionth time, knock on my door..
Can I come in?
Why?!!
I..I'm bored..I have a question or I..nevermind


Why? Because the White Lion never got over his Parrot. And we all know a parrot doesn't like to be disturbed, she needs her space. She needs an entire tree canopy to herself and she doesn't understand the white lion. When she was younger she used to hold his hand and they would skip down the street, when he was scared he crawled into her blue and yellow bed. We made plays, I forced you to play all the strange parts and kept the monologues to myself. If I was the proud Pilgrim, you just had to be the dancing Indian. If I were the space invader, you were the bad alien. 


We had this two twin bears with heart stitched overalls. We created a world named Heartland, made them a house and created complex stories about them. I used to lay on the bottom bunk with our little brother and tell you stories about Odie and Codie, two dogs that were always in scrapes. I did voices and motions and kicked and hollered till you screamed in laughter. I told you all about camp, about the treasure hunts and rivers. We built fairy houses and I believed much longer than you did. I still believe. And you don't.


Now you tell me I'm weird, that I am really really strange. Granted. I tell you you're needy, you're annoying. Granted.


But then who isn't?


And no matter what I call you, no matter how many times I kick you out of my room, lecture you, steal your favorite belt, yell at your spelling or tell you to go away, no matter how many times you are embarrassed that I still dance to music in supermarket aisles, that you tell me I'm weird or say I'm being mean or take change from my change jar, beg me to play Halo or scream at my dog...


You will always be my little white lion boy. You will always be my baby brother. And though you may never ever see this, I will always love you.


Because that is how this works.

Remember

I remember painting lines across my face in lipstick, hollering and throwing tea over the balcony, home made Boston Tea Party. I remember the metallic taste of the spoon against my tongue, cream rich ice cream melting. I remember the heat of my cheeks, pushing tears back because the words wouldn't come and water loosened them. But sometimes
water just chokes the words out...


I remember clearing dirt of my fingernails, hiding them so no one thought I was unclean or dirty. I remember the size of my fingers, cracked doll hands against the long tapered hands of others. "So small!"
I'm not so small.
 I remember when he first towered over me and grinned wide as a mile and patted me on the head. "Hello, little sister."
I'm not so little.


I remember telling him I didn't agree, trembling because the word 'no!' was wrong, bitter, against. I remember yelling because, that was the only way my voice would come out. Loud against the backdrop.
Excuse me, but I couldn't hear you over the sound of my own thoughts.
But Excuse me, You couldn't hear me over the thoughts of you own thoughts, either.


Swirls. I remember the mouse pitch of a sneeze between vibrato. I remember blue eyes with ice twinkles, brown eyes like a baby calf, warm and soft. I remember wild sea green eyes, kelp colored pupils. 


I remember shivering because I was cold.
I remember being cold because no one was looking, no one saw me. 
I shivered against being invisible. 
Goosebumps for vision.


I remember the lyrics to the songs. I remember writing lyrics to the songs in my heads, but they fell out silent ink to paper. 
"I want to be an astronaut and get high, break the barriers to the sky..I just wanna be free from the confines of gravity." 
"I want to be the one to put it to a song."


You make the lyrics and the way I write, but no one knows. Inkheart, Little Woman, Paddington Bear with covers ripped off, dropped in bathtubs, thumbed, spined, dog-earred. 


I remember screaming the lyrics till they lost meaning, dancing in my room alone to the Killers, dancing with her. Fedora on and pose in front of mirror. I remember rapping out of tune, laughing at the fallacies of my white beatlessness.


I remember putting on hoop skirts and somersaulting, leather gloves and feathered masks. I remember forcing the zipper up, inching dresses on. 


I remembering buying the denim mini skirt and my dad saying I shouldn't wear it because he hated the idea. I wore leggings to cover the idea of exposure. I remember the first time I wore makeup and smeared eyeshadow all over my face. I vanished under the lids of brown paint eyes. I remember the hair on the floor, freedom and shake.


I remember the bright lights and the rise and falls of my voice. "It's an obvious fact to me..." The power as the words hit the air, mixing with static. I got this. I have this. Reaching out for the electricity in the room and sending the pulse through my skin.


I remember the stories told about my great grandmother, I remember her candy colored beads and the squeaky  parakeet. I read her Dr. Seuss on her deathbed and cried when she couldn't here it. 
"She's not listening, Mom!"


I remember the news "It's a boy!" and then crying, because I wanted "It's a girl!" I remember staying up late doing homework and yelling "GET OUT!" Trying to fix yelling by hugs: a sister remedy, mix and stir. 


I remember that I remember him too much. I remember that I remember her too much. I remember that no one really knows how much I remember and I remember that maybe that is good. 


I desired to be remembered in ink, in book spines, in the curve of your cheeks and the straightening of your wrinkles,broad shoulders, long hair. I remember that I came from matzah ball soup and yellow stars, history and the crash of destiny. I remember the silent vowels and the dropped syllables.


I remember me. I remember you. I remember us. I remember them.


I remember.


Remember that I'll remember you.


Red ribbon tied around the finger, promise-to remember.

This Is For All The Physically Untalented Dreamers

“Really, you did swim team?! You just don't seem like someone who does sports to me. You are just all..artsy.” she explains. I laugh and glance down at my attire. I am wearing a polka dotted pea coat, a pair of vintage heels I found in the back of a costume/antique shop and one of my customary hair ornaments: an oversized bow I made out of ribbon, in my short hair. You know, the usual.

“I guess I look like someone who wears heels to school.” I respond. We laugh again. I definitely do not look like a physically talented person. And that my dears, would be because I am most certainly not.

Which is not to say that I haven't tried to be. Maybe the years of dance, where teachers were graced with my lack of ability and probably left class wondering if I was the offspring of two left footed penguins, doesn't count. But surely the tennis lessons where I never hit the ball over the net, but instead over the fence of the court, repeatedly, counts for something. Not to mention the year I played basketball and lost the ball not to the other team, but from my own hands, rolling into the stands on various occasions. Or there was my short lived soccer career. In kindergarten, I was a proud member of the Fire Fairies. However, after being kicked in the head by an oversized first grader while protecting my ball, my short and inglorious career ended. I returned for a short stint in 4^th grade for the Poison Oaks and played a blazing season of absolutely no wins. Our pizza party was fun, though.

I've run the mile in dresses. As for my tree climbing skills in heels and a skirt, I am unparalleled. I've done all six levels of swim lessons, the only sport I show any aptitude for and my dreams of being a skater girl are but a dim, distant, improbable future. I can officially skate about eight feet and not fall off the board. While doing ballet, I appear none so much as a small polar bear in a cheap circus act. I am a ball magnet, balls are magnetically attracted to my head. I do not understand this attraction in the least, as it is a rather small head that doesn't seem like such a wonderful target. However, I am convinced that is has something to do with the look of terror on my face as I realize in shock “Dang, that ball is about to hit me...” I am the queen of mini-golf fails and embarrassing P.E. moments. The girl who ends up always doing simple stretches wrong? Guilty. The girl who slips in her mismatched socks on the gym floor? My hand is raised.

But, I can swim. I'm not particularly fast, but my strokes are strong and my form is good. When I swim, I feel powerful. I feel free. So of the course, the immediate course of action was to take swim team. However, soon swim team began to pose some problems. First: do you know how many interesting bugs and leaves are at the bottom of a pool?! I would swim a lap and soon vanish into the blue water, searching for and picking up the interesting wildlife on the bottom of the pool.When I wasn't searching for it, I was often saving the various poor bugs that had fallen into the pool. Needless to say, my lap times were no record. The second problem posed was: the sun would set while I was in the pool, every night. Soon I would be caught staring up at the golden and often purple, setting of the sun. Writing poetry in my head, I would forget to swim. I lasted about two months. Maybe one day I will return to swim team, but don't expect me not to save the drowning bees.

And yet, I was blessed or maybe cursed with two moderately athletically talented brothers. I have been party to too many basketball and soccer games to count in my short, physically untalented life. So usually after making a few sarcastic comments about how young boys playing basketball look like angry crabs or trying not to glare at the passionate father in the stands yelling “THAT'S MY BOY!”, I turn to whatever activity I have brought to maintain my sanity. I have the “cheering-supportive-sister' bit down to a science. Every five minutes or so, I turn away from my doodles of tree nymphs or angsty poetry and yell “Go -insert name here- KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL! WOOH!” After fulfilling my supportive sisterly duty, I return to my world. Later in the car when my father beams about that shot brother 1 or brother 2 made, I will smile benevolently and reply:

“That was awesome!”

But the truth is, I have no idea what anyone is talking about. But it turns out, I am not alone. Through a few painful middle school memories (Um...teacher..I can't reach my toes...), and years of camp activities I have found that others share my issues. A race of nature loving-organized sport hating teenagers do exist. We're strange and not understand by a large percentage of the teenage population. We make cynical comments about the degradation of humanity at rallies and are often people incapable of walking in a straight line. We are the sort that when the entire camp begins to play volleyball, trail off into the fields and begin to make flower wreaths.

This is not to say my sort do not LIKE being active. In fact, I love being active and being surrounded by nature. We just don't like being forced like a pack of mules to sweat. We are the sort of people who tend to place themselves as far back in a line for kickball as possible. So this is for all the physically untalented dreamers who have no idea how to make a touchdown, who thought the Giants were just a baseball team and whose only experience with baseballs is through forced middle school games and Peanut episodes: you are not alone. 

Nowhere, Ca.

There is this town called Nowhere. That wasn't its name originally, oh no. Nowhere once had a respectable name of sorts, named after some explorer or such,the sort of name we glance over in an old textbook. But Nowhere wasn't content with such a respectable Anglo-Saxon name. Nowhere was precisely in the middle of well, nowhere and for this geographic placement the town became named. The town is by no city at all, Walmarts and convenient gas stations that stick to the hours they claim to be open  are foreign concepts. One is either remotely removed from all human life forms or uncomfortably close to one's neighbors. Nowhere is one of the last few beach towns untouched by corporations or surf chains, mostly due to the fact no one has paved the roads in years and the locals rip down all signs pointing to their town. Nowhere is a perfect slice of Nowhere. Conversations used to go as follows:


"Where do you live?"
"I live in the middle of nowhere"


And so the name stuck,the town became literally known as Nowhere and at that it remains to this day.
"Where do you live?"
"Nowhere."
"No, really, where do you live?"
"I live up on the hill, in Nowhere."


The center of Nowhere has always been Lulu's Cafe, owned by Nancy, now. Nancy is a heavy set middle aged woman who wears too much red lipstick, has greying brown hair and is drawn towards large floral print dresses and penny loafers. She makes a mean meatloaf and the best cinnamon bun and cup of steaming hot coffee you'll ever taste. Lulu's has been around for more years than anyone can remember, which is saying something. The original owner must have been named Lulu, and the nickname has stuck. Every subsequent owner has been nicknamed Lulu. Even the last owner, a nice man named Robert became the joke of the town, referred to as 'Lulu' by everyone. Robert had a good sense of humor and bore the nickname with a grin, though it's rumored it may have added to his eventual mental breakdown and selling of the cafe. Nowhere has that effect on some people. Time moves a bit more slowly here and stories get repeated and retold more often than some have patience for.


Lulu's Cafe technically opens at 7:00 am, or at least the sign says so. Sometimes Nancy 'Lulu' forgets to open the doors though and is rudely reminded by P.J. rapping his cane against the glass door, clamoring for his morning donut and cup of black coffee, no cream. 


P.J. is an old painter, who sometimes forgets to change out of his robe. He has a sharp tongue and wry sense of humor. He drives an old cranky Volvo that he refers to as 'Virginia'. Virginia sends out fumes of black steam and creaks and groans. He will click his tongue and look at his old decrepit car and sigh "Creaks and groans for us both..I always wonder whose back is going to go out first." and then turn back to his black coffee. He sits in the peeling red booth by the window, with a newspaper and watches as the other customers roll in.


Lily, the new librarian and yoga teacher in town usually comes in around 7:30. She orders her cup of green tea and wheat bread like every morning. She is a pretty young thing, long blonde hair swept back and large brown eyes  with a determined step and lively disposition. Her yoga classes have turned out to be surprisingly full, though mostly by the middle aged men of Nowhere, for reasons she seems completely naive to. P.J. himself has even been present at a few, though he does not do much besides sitting on his yoga ball complaining about how he is too old to do this kind of thing. Lily always greets Nancy with a  cheery good morning and sits by the fire as Nancy brings her "the usual" while urging her to eat more.
"Are you sure you don't want some eggs or some bacon..or I would even whip up some of my meatloaf for ya, hun."
"Oh, I'm just fine! Lula, I don't want anything else..don't worry!"
"Are you dieting, hun? Hun, you better not be dieting. I once tried to diet and believe me, the things diet do to a good figure like our own, well, let me tell you.."
Lily will laugh and listen to Nancy's horror tales of diets, like every morning and sip her green tea. P.J. always makes some comments as she leaves about her not lasting, her kind never lasting in Nowhere.


Nancy will click her tongue at P.J. and wag her apron at him as Bean walks in. Bean's real name is Elizabeth Jillian Clark. However P.J. has never had a good head for names, which has only worsened with age. He usually just calls people whatever they remind him of. Bean is tall and long with long features and a willowy walk that reminds one quite a lot of a bean stalk. That is exactly what P.J. christened her as soon as she appeared in town. As is the story with most of Nowhere, the name stuck.
Bean is an avid knitter and loves children, though she has none of her own. Hence she is constantly knitting some new contraption or scarf for some already overburdened child of Nowhere, getting ready to bequeath them with their umpteenth scarf or mitten from her. Bean is also the town gossip. She will stroll into the cafe with her tongue already wagging, not even bothering to say hello.
"Oh, Lula, you won't even BELIEVE what I just heard!! So you know Charles at the gas station, well as we all know he has been making eyes at the  cashier for years. Well, and it was about time if you ask me,  so yesterday I heard that..you won't even believe it! Well Delilah went to the gas station and she no one was there..well you wouldn't believe it but when she went 'round back.."


"No, I don't believe it!" P.J. will grumble just to bug Bean.


Bean will fix him with a glare and continue her story to whoever is listening and will continue to repeat the story to anyone who walks through the glass doors.


Alfred sometimes pulls his big old Harley into the parking lot outside of Lulu's, hollers and strolls in. He will pull Lulu into his arms to sound of her pretend shrieks, gives her a big wet kiss on the lips and laugh as she complains about his big brown beard. Alfred is Lulu's boyfriend of 15 years, a nomadic, leather clad motorcycle enthusiast who is completely and utterly in love with Lulu. Alfred proposes to her every year, on the same date, with the same ring, in the same manner. Usually he will swing his arm around her, over two cups of coffee when the restaurant has closed and holler
"Lulu, you are quite the fine looking woman and I really do love you. How about we get hitched?"
"Alfred, you know I love you, but you don't sit still, hun. You are my nomad. Life traveling around doesn't suit my settling bones. And do you really want to live in Nowhere? This is my home, I don't want to move and live in motel eights with you."
"But I bought you the motorcycle..you riding it?"
"Sometimes" Lula will lie.
"So is this a no?"
"Nah, I couldn't ever say no to you!"
"Well, good..so..uh..should I ask again next year?"
"That sounds like a fine idea, Allie."
And so he does and has done for fifteen years.


Jasmine is the local writer, a small girl with cropped blonde hair and big peering owl like eyes. She usually comes in after school and will order anything from a bagel and cream cheese to Lulu's fried chicken and waffles. She's a funny girl with an animated nature and funny perspective on the world. She loves to prop herself next to P.J. and tell him stories. She can always make the old man chuckle, despite his grouchy nature. They take turn swapping stories like two old chickadees, back and forth. Jasmine or Jazzy is a very high-strung, emotional child and will often pour out her entire heart to the old man. It's an unlikely friendship, but the two are as thick as cream. Jasmine once told P.J. an old fairytale about a girl who was born with two hearts and would fix hearts and broken dreams with a needle. P.J. looked her squarely in the eye and then pointed at the pen clasped in her hands and said in his low  gravely voice
"This is your needle, two heart- girl..now go fix the world."
And so Jazzy is. She comes into Lula's every afternoon and writes as much as she can, the observation arounds her. Lula always laughs at her and calls her the cafe sponge. But P.J. and Jazzy both know who she really is.


So this is Lulu's Cafe, a small coffee shop with big red peeling booths and movie posters of old films no one bothered to see, fraying hot pink fake rose bouquets and checkered floors. The inhabitants of Nowhere flock in and out of the cafe, day in and out, and time goes slowly as Lulu warms up her coffee pot, and the waves in the sea crash in and out as they have since back when Lulu's cafe was truly owned by a Lulu.


And times go on and on, as it always has in...


Nowhere, Ca.