Slam Poetry Lyrics

In 2010 six black teenagers drowned in the Louisiana Red River, researchers found that 70% of black people do not know how to swim - that black kids are three times more likely to drown, the question became: 'why do blacks possess the fear of water?' I've heard sharks followed slave ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean, trailing black bodies thrown overboard I heard during slave time white masters refused to let blacks learn them to swim because a swimming slave could get away, Could swim to freedom Could figure out a way to wade in the water- I heard little black kids ain't nothing but 'gator bait; 'gator bait lets you catch an alligator so big, so vicious it'd bite like racism Black momma's be like 'keep your kids out the water, it ain't safe child' I heard a Jim Crowe North and a Ku Klux South kept coloureds out of public swimming pools and off public water fountains, I heard they hose niggers down with a firefighter water hose like you hose down a rabied dog in the summertime heat A New Orleaner heard come hell or high water they were gonna watch niggers drown in a hurricane down south, Heard they knew the levees was gonna give in and break Knew the waters was coming to wash niggers away Tell me, how do a nigger keep their head above water if niggers can't swim? Niggers can't doggy paddle, niggers can't tread water, Niggers jump, but never jump in I sprint, you swim Niggers can't float - our body's too dense, We don't fuck with the rain cos our hair just got did. I heard yesterday, in Detroit, they cut the water off I heard the water don't run I heard the faucets run dry I heard kids are dehydrated, niggers is thirsty. Heard they've been gasping for air Been drowning in oppression For what feels like forever, ever since crossing the Atlantic Been feeling lost at sea Been feeling like a fish out of water Like a body sinking in the deep end Like treading troubled waters And drowning.

Dude on Twitter says: 'I was having sex with my girlfriend when she started her period. I dumped that bitch immediately' Dear Nameless Dummy on Twitter You're the reason my daughter cried funeral tears when she started her period, The sudden grief all young girls feel after the matriculation from childhood And the induction into a reality that they're gonna have to negotiate you and your disdain for what a woman's body can do Herein begins an anatomy lesson infused with feminist politics because I hate you: There is a thing... Called a uterus... It sheds itself every twenty-eight days or so- Or in my case every twenty-three days, I've always been a rule-breaker That's the anatomy part, I digress. The feminist politics part Is that women know how to let things go, How to let a dying thing leave the body, How to become new How to regenerate How to wax and wane, not unlike the moon and tides- Both of which influence how you behave, I digress. Women have vaginas that can speak to each other, By this I mean When we're with our friends, our sisters, our mothers Our menstrual cycles will actually sync the fuck up. My own cervix is mad influential, Everybody I love knows how to bleed with me, Hold onto that, there's a metaphor in it. But when your mother carried you The ocean in her belly is what made you buoyant, made you possible You had it under your tongue when you burst through her skin, Wet and panting from the heat of her body; The body whose machinery you now mock on social media, That body wrapped you in everything that was miraculous about it And sung you lullabies laced in platelets- Without which you wouldn't have no Twitter account at all, motherfucker I digress. See it's possible that we know the world better because of the blood that visits some of us. It interrupts our favourite white skirts And shows at dinner parties unannounced Blood will do that, period. It will come when you are not prepared for it, Blood does that, period. Blood is the biggest siren and we understand that blood misbehaves, It does not wait for a hand signal Or a welcome sign above the door. And when you deal in blood over and over again like we do, When it keeps returning to you Well, that makes you a warrior And while all good generals know not to discuss battle plans with the enemy Let me say this to you, Dummy on Twitter: If there's any balance in the universe at all You're gonna be blessed with daughters. 'Blessed'. Etymologically 'blessed' means 'to make bleed', See, now it's a lesson in linguistics. In other words: blood speaks That's the message, stay with me See your daughters're gonna teach you what all men must one day come to know, That women, made of moonlight, magic, and macabre Will make you know the blood. We're gonna get it all over the sheets and car seats We're gonna do that We're gonna introduce you to our insides, period. And if you are as unprepared as we sometimes are It'll get all over you and leave a forever stain. So to my daughter, Should any fool mishandle the wild geography of your body, How it rides a red-running current Like any good wolf or witch just bleed, Boo. Give that blood a biblical name Something of stone and mortar, Name it after Eve's first rebellion in that garden Name it after the last little girl to have her genitals mutilated in Kinshasa- That was this morning. Give it as many syllables as there are unreported rape cases, Name the blood something holy, Something mighty Something unlanguageable Something in hieroglyphs Something that sounds like the end of the world. Name it for the roar between your legs and the women who will not be nameless, Hear, just bleed anyhow Spill your impossible scripture all over the good furniture Bleed and bleed and bleed On everything he loves, period.

Black Privilege is the hung elephant swinging in the room It is the memory of a slave ship, Praying for the altzheimer's to kick in. Black Privilege is me already having memorised my nephews eulogy My brother's eulogy My father's eulogy My unconceived child's eulogy, Black Privilege is me thinking my sister's name safe from that list. Black Privilege is me pretending like I know Trayvon Martin on a first name basis It's me using a dead boy's name to win a poetry slam It's me carrying a mouthful of other people's skeletons to use at my own convenience, Black Privilege is the concrete that holds my breath better than my lungs do. Black Privilege is always having to be the strong one It's having a crowbar for a spine It's fighting even when you have no more blood to give, Even when your bones carried you Even when your mother prayed for you, Even after they prepared your body for the funeral Black Privilege is being so unique That not even God will look like you, Black Privilege is still being the first person in line to meet him. Black Privilege is having to have the same sense of humour as Jesus, Remember how he smiled on the cross? The same way Malcolm X laughed at his bullet- And there I go again asserting my Black Privilege Using a dead man's name without his permission Black Privilege is a myth It is a joke It is a punchline It is the time a teacher asked a little boy what he wanted to be when he grew up And he said 'alive' It's the way she laughed when she said 'there's no college for that' And it's tiring you know? For everything about my skin to be a metaphor For everything black to be pun-intended, To be death-intended. Black Privilege is the applause at the end of this poem It's me giving you a dead boy's body and you giving me a ten, It's me being okay with that And I tried writing a love poem the other day But my fingers wouldn't move, My skin started to blister like it didn't trust me any more, Like it thought I was trading in this noose for a pearl necklace. Some days I am afraid to look into the mirror for fear That a bullet George Zimmerman-ed its way into my chest while I was asleep. The breath in my mouth is weapon enough to scare a courtroom I'll be lucky if I'm alive to make it to the stand, For some people their trials live longer than they do. Black Privilege is knowing that if I die At least Al Sharpton will come to my funeral At least Al Sharpton will mason-jar my mother's tears, Remind us that the only thing we are worthy of is our death. We are judged by the number of people it takes to carry our caskets Black Privilege is me thinking that's enough- It's me thinking this poem is enough. Black Privilege is this It's this breath in my mouth right now It is me standing right here with a crowd full of witnesses to my heartbeat.

Ask me what kind of porn I am into And I will take you on a magical journey To fanfiction dot com backslash Harry Potter backslash NC17 What turns me on is Ginny Weasely in the restricted section With her skirt hiked up; Sirius Black in a secret passage way, Solemnly swearing that he is up to no good; And Draco Malfoy in the room of requirement slithering in to my Chamber of Secrets; I am an unapologetic consumer of all things Potterotica, And the sexiest part Is not the way Cho Chang rides that broomstick Or the sounds of Myrtle moaning, The sexiest part is knowing That they are part of a bigger story; That they exist beyond eight minutes in Titty Titty Gang Bang, That their kegels are not the strongest thing about them, And still I am told That my porn is 'unrealistic'. Not quite as erotic as flashing ads saying 'just turned 18' So you can fantasize about fucking the youngest girl you won't go to jail for. I'm told that my porn isn't quite as lifelike As a room full of lesbians begging for cock, Told that this is what is supposed to turn me on. Don't you give me raw meat And tell me it is nourishment, I know a slaughterhouse when I see one. It looks like 24/7 live streaming Reminding me that men are going to fuck me whether I like it or not, That there is one use for my mouth and it is not speaking, That a man is at his most powerful when he's got a woman by the hair. The first time a man I loved held me by the wrists And called me a whore I did not think 'run', I thought 'this is just like the movies' I know a slaughterhouse when I see one. It looks like websites and seminars teaching you how to fuck more bitches, Looks like fifteen-year-old boys bullied for being virgins, It looks like the man who did not flinch When I said stop and he heard 'try harder'. If you play-act at butchery long enough You grow used to the sounds of screaming, It is just a side effect of industry; Everything gets cut into small, marketable pieces. I will not practice bloody hands I will not make believe dissected women, My sex cannot be packaged My sex is magic It is part of a bigger story I am whole I exist when you are not fucking me And I will not be cut into pieces any more.

Joey always told me, laughing, as though it were actually a joke That he wanted to kill himself but it was never the right time, There were always groceries to be bought And little brothers to be tucked in at night. Don't worry, Joey isn't gonna kill himself 20 more seconds into this poem, It's not that kind of story I'm telling here. Joey got a promotion and now he can afford anti-depressants. Joey is Joe now. Joe is a cold engine in which none of the parts complain Joe is a brick someone made out of fossils If you removed money from the equation, Joey would have been painting elk on cave walls People would have fed him and kept him away from high places Because goddamn look at those elk. I think the genes for being an artist and mentally ill aren't just related, They're the same gene But try telling that to a bill-collector. We were seventeen And I drove us all to punk shows in a station wagon that was older than any of us, We were seventeen And I bought lunch for Joey more often than I didn't, We were seventeen And the one time Joey tried to talk to me about being depressed when someone else was around I told him to shut the hell up and asked if he needed to change his tampon You know that moment when the cartoon realises he's taken three steps off the cliff And he takes a long look at the audience Like we're holding the last moving box in a half empty house? Joey looked like that without the puff of smoke. He just played video games for a half hour and then went home I once caught Joey in my dad's office, Staring at the safe where he knew we kept the guns Once Joey moulded his car into the shape of a tree trunk and refused to give a reason why I once caught Joey in biology class Staring at a scalpel like he wanted to be the frog Splayed out, wide open So honest There is one difference between me and Joey: When we got arrested, bail money was waiting for me at the station When I was hungry, I ate When I wanted to open myself up and see if there really were bees rattling around in there, My parents got me a therapist. I can pinpoint the session that brought me back to the world, That session cost seventy-five dollars. Seventy-five dollars is two weeks of groceries It's a month of bus fare It's not even a school-year's worth of new shoes, It took weeks of seventy-five dollars to get to the one that saved my life. We both had parents that believed us when we said that we weren't okay But mine could afford to do something about it I wonder how many kids like Joey wanted to die, And were unlucky enough to actually pull it off, How many kids had people who cared about them but also had to pay rent? I'm so lucky that right now I'm not describing Joey's funeral I'm so lucky we all lived through who we were To become who we are I'm so lucky- I'm so Lucky

I like people. I'd like some paper people. They'd be purple paper people, Maybe pop-up purple paper people- Proper pop-up purple paper people 'How do you prop up proper pop-up purple paper people?' I hear you cry Well I... I'd probably prop up proper pop-up purple paper people With a prop up pop-up purple people paperclip, But a pre-prepare appropriate adhesive as alternative's a cheeky pack of Blu-Tack just in case the paper slips Cause I could build a pop up metropolis But I wouldn't wanna deal with all those paper people politics. Paper politicians with their paper thin policies, Broken promises without appropriate apologies. There'd be a little paper me, and a little paper you And we could watch paper TV and it would all be pay-per-view, We'd see those poppy paper rappers rap about their paper package Or watch paper people-carriers get stuck in paper traffic On the A4 ...paper. There'd be a paper Princess Kate But we'd all stare a paper Pippa, And we'd all live in fear of killer Jack the paper-ripper. Because the paper propaganda propagates the peoples prejudices, Paper's spreading pictures of the photogenic terrorists. It's a little paper me, and a little paper you. And in a pop-up population people's problems pop up too There'd be that pompus paper parliament, who remained out of touch And who ignored the people's protests about all the papercuts, And then the peaceful paper protests would get blown to paper pieces By the confetti cannons manned by pre-emptive police. And yes, there'd still be paper money So there'd still be paper greed, And the paper piggy-bankers pocketing more than they need, Purchasing the potpourri to pepper their paper properties. Others live in poverty and ain't acknowledged properly A proper poor economy where so many are proper poor, But while their needs get ignored the money goes to big wars. Origami armies unfold plans for paper planes And we remain imprisoned in our own paper chains But the greater shame Is that it always seems to stay the same. What changes is who's in power choosing how to lay the blame And naming names, forgetting these are names of people, Cause in the end it all comes down to people. I like people Because even when the situation's dire It is only ever people are able to inspire, And on paper it's hard to see how we all cope. But in the bottom of Pandora's box there's still hope And I still hope because I believe in people, People like my grandparents, who every single day since I was born Have taken time out of their morning to pray for me, That's 7,892 days straight of someone checking I'm okay and that's amazing. People like my aunt, who puts on plays with prisoners. People who are capable of genuine forgiveness, People like the persecuted Palestinians, People who'll go out of their way to make your life better And expect nothing in return, You see, people have potential to be powerful. Just because the people in power tend to pretend to be victims We don't need to succumb to that system. And a paper population is no different And in a pop up population people's problems pop up too, But even if the whole world fell apart we'd still make it through Because we're people.

I have never felt so at ease as the day you called me 'precocious' I have never feared big words, Only those that refuse to use them And the syllables rolled off your tongue like honey- I was hooked. Language became our vein of communication And I know that everybody uses language to communicate, But ours was different As if in between the letters and the syllables There's a secret message only we could decipher. My days were filled with the sound of your voice, And your nights were littered with the loops of my handwriting We exchanged our favourite words Mine being 'illuminated' And yours being 'cattywampus' And our least favourites; Mine, 'moist', and yours 'almost' And when I asked you why, You said it was because 'almost' held failed potential That it represented our ability to be just not good enough That we had come to the brink of something beautiful But fell short so many times, We crafted a word for it But even we, with our supposed mastery of the English language, Were not immune to the shortcomings of our vocabularies Words can only help you if you speak them I never told you that I loved you You never told me that you were dying. Five easy words that would have shattered our world, 'I love you, I think' 'I have a brain tumour' You know, still to this day, I don't know all the details Because medical jargon has never fit right in my mouth. And even now, five years later It feels like an invasion of your privacy But I do know I have poured over our conversations Searching for the secret message you certainly tried to send me And I am sorry, But I only almost found it. Salt water is not good for paper And my tears warped your words After some serious consideration I've decided to change my least favourite word Because while 'moist' is gross, 'Malignant' is malicious 'Malignant' is uncontrollable It means a phone call and the phrase 'He didn't wake up' 'Malignant' is messy and unfair and a thief 'Malignant' means I never got to say goodbye 'Malignant' is the cause of 'almost' Because you were on the brink of something beautiful But you couldn't quite reach it And you fell too far I am so sorry I wasn't there to catch you. I hope your heaven is a library And I hope it is void of almosts. Te amo Daniel, sleep well

Every thursday I go to couples therapy with my Depression, He whispers in my ear to stay in bed for another day Presses his palm to my chest Afraid I’m going to escape the covers After I scrape myself out of the shower I still smell like him, Like midnight panic attacks Like first name basis with the CVS pharmacists Like I’m not hungry, I already had a Rice Krispies Treat today. Our sessions with our therapist are 50 minutes We spend that time restating the same issues to her We’ve been on again off again Since high school, But this time it’s been a solid year That’s got to mean it’s getting serious? She asks about my appetite. Well no I haven’t been eating but He likes me skinny, Makes it easier for him to be big spoon It’s like I disappear in him Like his body swallows mine She asks if I’ve done anything with my friends lately. Not in a while We usually stay in, My friends are the third wheel if we’re out together That’s what happens when you’ve been with someone so long She asks if anything has changed since I started with the Zoloft. He digs his nails into the chair, grits his teeth She asks me again. He gets jealous… But Zoloft treats me well, Takes me to breakfast in the morning Feeds me French toast He got mad though Something like cheating on him, Threatened to take out the scissors So I threatened to see Zoloft even more. All of him All at once I almost …did She asks if that was the night my friend took me to the health centre. Well yeah but it was just one time And the nurse said no visitors Took Zoloft away from me So we got to spend some quality time as a couple again Our therapist thinks I’m only with him Because my father called my mother a whore Or because I still sometimes wish I were straight Or because I’ve never had a serious love life - She doesn’t understand this is the most serious relationship I’ve ever had She says times up, come back next week. He mutters ‘fine’ under my breath, Slams the door on our way out Our therapist said that there have been improvements over the past few weeks, That he and I will probably always be together But that I’ll be more independent soon. Lately I’ve started thinking more about that, Mornings when I wake up hungry My body remembers how to leave the mattress on its own Feel his arms shrink from my waist for a few hours So I can finish a poem Watch Parks and Rec Eat a sandwich Make the bed without crawling back in Even when he says that without him I would be a gutted house scraped clean, Creaking and caving in Sometimes I still think he’s right But last week I stepped onto the scale I gained 3 pounds It’s only 3 pounds But it’s all me It’s all Me

Here in America In every single state, They have a set of standards for every subject A collection of lessons that the teacher’s required to teach by the end of the term. But the greatest lessons you will ever teach us will not come from your syllabus The greatest lessons you will ever teach us You will not even remember. You never told us what we weren’t allowed to say We just learned how to hold our tongues Now somewhere in America There is a child holding a copy of Catcher in the Rye And there is a child holding a gun But only one of these things have been banned by their State Government And it’s not the one that can rip through flesh It’s the one that says ‘fuck you’ on more pages than one Because we must control what the people say - How they think And if they wanna become the overseer of their ownselves Then we’ll show them a real one. And somewhere in America There is a child sitting at his mother’s computer Reading the homepage of the KKK’s website That’s open to the pulic But that child will have never read to kill a mockingbird Because his school has banned it for its use of the N word. Maya Angelou is prohibited Because we’re not allowed to talk about rape in school We were taught that just because something happens Doesn’t mean you are to talk about it They build us brand new shopping malls So that we’ll forget where we’re really standing: On the bones of the hispanics On the bones of the slaves On the bones of the native americans On the bones of those who fought just to speak Transcontintental Railroad to Japanese internment camps; There are things missing from our history books. But we were taught that it is better to be silent than to make them uncomfortable Somewhere in America Private schoolgirls search for hours through boutiques Trying to find the prom dress of their dreams While kids on the South Side spend hours searching through the lost and found Cos winters coming soon and that’s the only jacket they have Kids are late to class for working the midnight shift, They give awards for best attendance But not for keeping your family off the streets. These kids will call your music ghetto They will tell you you don’t talk right Then they’ll get in the backseat of a car With all their friends Singing about how they’re “bout that life’ and 'we can’t stop’ Somewhere in America Schools are promoting self confidence While they whip out their scales And shout out your body fat percentage in class Where the heftier girls are hiding away And the slim fit beauties can’t help but giggle with pride The preppy kids go thrift shopping cos they think it sounds real fun But we go cos that’s all we got money for Cos mama works for the city Mama only gets paid once a month Somewhere in America A girl’s getting felt up by a grown man on the subway, She’s still in her school uniform And that’s part of the appeal, It’s hard to run in knee socks and Mary Janes And all her male teachers know it too Coaches cover up star players Raping freshmen after the dance, Women are killed for rejecting dates. But god forbid I bring my girlfriend to prom? A girl is blackout drunk at the after party Take a picture before her wounds wake her How many pixels is your sanity worth? What’s a 4.0 to a cold jury? What’d you learn in class today? Don’t walk fast Don’t speak loud Keep your hands to yourself Keep your head down Keep your eyes on your own paper If you don’t know the answer Fill in C Always wear earbuds when you ride the bus alone If you feel like someones following you Pretend you’re on the phone A teacher never fails Only you do In every state in America The greatest lessons Are the ones you don’t rememeber learning

One The Victorians honoured human hair Because it was the only trait of the body That remained after death. I shaved my legs in your shower I hid long strands of myself in your pillowcases, This is all that is left Two Thinking of someone else during sex Is a cardinal sin punishable by nothing Three The heart is wanting The heart is perpetually two years old The heart is bad at sharing The heart is a hungry gas tank The heart is not a metaphor Four When the teacher asks you what grade you think you deserve You will always say b+ Five Ninety percent of Americans will vote for Obama Because the night before the election He will slow dance with his wife And kiss her forehead and we will want so badly To believe they actually fucking love each other Six Writing a list of ways I could be better And writing a suicide note Are the same thing Seven The heart lives in a packed elevator: It doesn't know what floor it's waiting for But it wants It wants It wants to get off Eight The Victorians believed that When you write a poem from an airplane That moment becomes suspended in the sky forever Like an ornament in God's mobile. So now you know Somewhere between Phoenix and Las Vegas A thousand miles up There you are Like a grocery list pinned to blue

Dear you, 
Whoever you are, 
However you got here 
This is exactly where you are supposed to be. 
This moment has waited its whole life for you. 
This moment is your lover and you are a soldier, 
Come home baby, it’s over 
You don’t need to suffer any more. Dear you, 
This moment is a surprise party, 
You are both hiding in the dark and walking through the door, 
This moment is a hallelujah. 
This moment is your permission slip 
To finally open that love letter 
You’ve been hiding from yourself, 
The one you wrote when you were little, 
When you still danced like a sparkler at dusk, 
Do you remember the moment you realised 
They were watching? 
When you became ashamed 
Of how much light you were holding? 
When you first learned how to un-love yourself? Dear you, 
The word ‘today’ means ‘amen’ in every language. 
Today we made it, 
Today I’m gonna love you, 
Today the box cutter will rust in the garbage, 
Today the noose will forget how to hold you, 
Today- 
Today- Dear you - and I have always meant you, 
Nothing would be the same if you did not exist. 
You, who were once as small as a bouquet, 
Who could sleep in the laps of strangers, 
Nothing would be the same if you did not exist. 
You, whose voice is someone’s favourite voice, 
Someone’s favourite face to wake up to, 
Nothing would be the same if you did not exist. You, the teacher, the starter’s gun, 
The lantern in the night who offers not a way home 
But the courage to travel farther into the dark. 
You, the lover who worships the taste of her body, 
Who is the largest tree ring in his heart, 
Who does not let fear ration your love. You, the friend, 
The sacred chorus of ‘how can I help?’. 
You, who have felt more numb than holy, 
More cracked than mosaic, 
Who has known the tiles of a bathroom by heart, 
Who has forgotten what makes you worth it. 
You, the forgiven, 
The forgiver, 
Who belongs right here in this moment. You, this clump of cells, 
This happy explosion that happened to start breathing. 
By the grace of whatever is up there, 
You got here, 
You made it this whole way. 
Through the nights that swallowed you whole, 
The mornings that arrived in pieces. 
The scabs, 
The gravel, 
The doubt, 
The hurt- 
The hurt- 
The hurt is over, 
Today you made it- 
You made it- 
You made it 
Here.

1:00 AM - Sierra Demulder

Dear Straight People - Denice Frohman

Scars/To the New Boyfriend - Rudy Francisco

One Colour - Neil Hilborn & Ollie Renee Schminkey