QC Awards- Poetry

In January of this year, I stumbled upon the Kathmandu Word Warriors' QC Poetry Slam Awards. I had never attempted to write or perform Spoken Word Poetry before. However, I regularly watched Sarah Kay, Phil Kaye, and other established Spoken Word Poets on YouTube. When Sarah Kay came to Kathmandu in December, I raced to purchase tickets with a couple of close friends. What I'm trying to say is that Spoken Word Poetry is new to me, but not. Thus, when I sent in a poem called 'If' to the QC Awards, I was not expecting anything. I'd actually sent the poem because my English teacher had exhorted me to. However, I got called to their 2-day-workshop. It was a super helpful weekend, in which I realized how much I enjoy poetry. By sharing poems I wrote on the spot-I also had a second epiphany- I didn't suck. People seemed to like to listen to what I wrote. Then, when I was notified of the auditions for the QC awards, I decided to give it a go. I was extremely nervous and forgot half of my poem. Somehow, though, I made it to the next round. A bunch of my closest girlfriends came to support me. I was extremely nervous- but I somehow made it to the semi-finals, the top-ten. There would be 5 winners, and listening to my peers I had no expectations. To me, it wasn't even about the points anymore. When I had first gotten up on stage during the auditions, I had been terrified. I was shaking and I couldn't speak properly. However, somehow, on the Feb 7th performances, I felt confident on stage.  Like I belonged. Like what I was saying wasn't just sounds or words I'd written up in my bedroom. It felt like something that mattered. People were listening- not in the vague way that most people listen (multitasking- half listening, half trying to come up with a reply) but ACTUALLY LISTENING. There were five winners and I ended up being one of them. That didn't really matter to me though. What mattered was the the fact that I had spoken up about things that actually mattered to me- things from my journal, things I'd been ashamed to share before. I had opened up and people had listened. I had made friends along the way too- friends who were just as interested in literature and writing as I am. After the first weekend of the workshop, I decided that no matter what happens, I'm going to start writing poetry regularly- for myself. Anyway, it was a great month and here's one of my performances if you happen to be interested in watching. It's about feminism- very appropriate for International Women's Day.

Anything But A Rollarcoaster

Adamant, I
Refuse roller-coasters.
Yellow-bellied, scared stiff of 
Anything to do with the air yet I
Adore adventure:

Roaring rivers and the Himalayas
Accompanied by 
Jittery nerves and jangly friends- riches 
Oblivious to even the 
Utmost 
Royale patrons,
Instead lie here with me-
And without a roller-coaster in sight.

The Dribble Home (wards)

Dribble.

Up with the sun,

Down with the stars,

The middle lasts all day.

Dribble.

A mellow sunset,

A changing constant,

Stuck between calloused fingers.

Dribble.

A sliver of slience,

Into the cookie jar

Another (not-so) free-throw.

Dribble.

Through a hundred hands,

A thousand times,

Full of sweat, dirt, and grime.

Dribble.

A sea of heads,

Branches of hair,

Peeking out.

Dribble, swish.

Shots made,

Point scored,

Friendship created.

Dribble.

The home-court advantage.

Dribble, always, dribble.

Because the dribble is home.

Somewhere In Between

I’m from adventures on sandy shores,

that I sleepily carried home,

I’m from hair-flying, lung-bursting

car-rides screaming along to Taylor Swift.

I’m from Simon and Garfunkel

And my mother’s “mac-n-cheese, with everything you’ll ever need”

I’m from group hugs and

“LOL-lots of love”

I’m from stacks of books

And discussions with my father

I’m from the star-gazing,

the stray-puppy-lovin’ hood

I’m from meandering ghettos

And the turquoise ocean

From floating boats,

In the sinking sea.

I’m from ring-pops and tongue tattoos,

Dancing the hula while singing the blues

I’m from thumb-wars and tic-tacs,

Ironic winks and masquerade masks.

I’m from midnight basketball with my brother

Where strategic dribbles fade into lots of giggles.

I’m from ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and

Everything Harry Potter.

I am just as much from ‘Namaste’ as I am from ‘Aloha’

My head’s in the mountains

And my heart’s in the ocean,

But I guess I’m from somewhere in between.

Regret

Regret started by changing my favorite color from periwinkle pink to blasphemy blue,

To impress a gaggle of boys with perpetually runny noses in the fourth grade
Trying to convince THEM that girls didn’t have cooties by lying to myself
But wh ispering lies leads to shouting the truth
And regret sounds like
I do like blue, I do like blue, I do like blue,
But I just don’t like you.

After the awkward, sweaty middle school dance in the 7^th grade,
Regret continued
When a boy whose last name was Spain
Was asked by friends to rate me
and he gave me an 8 out of 10
on a spectrum he made up
a B+ that was somehow determined my worth
Cool, but not cool enough
Regret looked liked marks on my lips
Stamps of teeth that zipped my mouth shut
before I told him what I’d rate him
Holding in verbal diarrhea, that would surely get me a C-

In the 10^th grade, my friends and I were divided in two groups
By boys who were convinced there were two types of girls
Girls like me
And girls like her
Girls who could analyze Shakespeare like it was second nature
But couldn’t walk a meter in two inch heels
And girls who could
Girls with perfect eyebrows and all the right curves in all the right places
Girls who were just friends
And girls who were always someone’s girlfriend
Regret was living in the prison they created
Instead of setting the whole thing on fire
Because they couldn’t understand that we were sisters
And you can’t just tear a family apart.

Regret was the silence

That followed an argument with my brother, 10 years young,
I, a puddle of tears
And he, brimming but unyielding, “Boys don’t cry.”
But regret was not the hug I gave him,
a hard squeeze that attempted to tell him what I couldn’t.

Boys may not cry, but humans do.  
And somewhere between kindergarten and the first football game, we’ve forgotten boys are human too.

And when my friend teased me the other day
“ohhh, she wants the D”
Regret was not my answer
“Yeah, I want the D.
the Destruction of the Patriarchy.”