Riotwalker

Partly because there are people who were once very familiar with my poems, mainly in Chicago, who have not heard me perform my new piece,
Partly because I haven’t typed out the piece until now, and because of my excitement of the way it looks and reads in print,
Partly because I’m worried I don’t know how to write when I have my life together, and I want to post something beautiful anyway,
Whatever the reason, I hope you enjoy my newest spoken word piece, Riotwalker:

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riotwalker

If Chance calls, tell her I’m out watching Nostalgia.
He keeps putting photo albums up on the news stands and
can’t seem to keep up to date. He doesn’t know why.
Just like Jealousy
doesn’t know why locking his lovers into chastity belts
never extinguishes the flames from his cheekbones.
They should get together.
Let’s try and keep ‘em away from Pride though,
’cause that guy,
he strips off the skin from Self Esteem, wears it as a costume
and that kinda shit grosses me out.

And as for Hope…
Ouch.
Me and that flaky bastard have been playin’ phonetag
for over two decades and sometimes
I wanna give him up.

Which reminds me of Attachment.
Yeah… Attachment,
who cries things like TAKE ME
TAKE ME, BABY, TAKE ME ’cause,
I’m not whole without you.
I would be if ya cut out the W
but I know ya don’t have scissors for that kinda stuff.
He says it with Persistence.

Persistence,
is taking the anxiety of a mother who can no longer help her son,
stickin’ it in a printing press and stamping it
over, and over, and over
onto back issues of faith.
And folks, I hope it’s not too late.
‘Cause I keep tryin’ to talk Suicide out of himself.
He keeps jumping in front of cars on the freeway
but they keep dodging him and
they’re scared, too.

Because Fear
walks the way riots do,
Molotov cocktails for biceps and a chest like a bulletproof vest,
windows fall with his footsteps and I heard him comin’.
Because I was caught by Truth in a desert full of pillows.
She gave me oceans,
carefully crafted from bags of the bolts and nails
it hails when the clouds shutter for us,
but that doesn’t change the fact
that I’ve been trappin’ thunderclaps in my pillowcase.
I’m savin’m for dull dreams,
for streams of unwatched thought,
for the knots
that bundle up in my torso every time I think I’m not enough.
I’m fucking enough.
Yeah,
Love told me so.

She tied together every character of this song with a chain,
each link being a different moment I actually showed up for.
It’s how I stand before you,
so wrecked and shaking in my nervousness I freak.
It’s just that lately Confidence has been singin’ me to sleep.