Performing at Station Hope - Cleveland Public Theater

 

Photos from my performance at Station Hope, an annual celebration of Hope and Social Justice. Station Hope is created by Cleveland Public Theater. 

Performing at Micro Theater Cleveland

 

Reciting my essay/poem Ask Me at The Brownhoist - Micro Theater, on Friday 5/24/24.

Two Diverging Roads - A Poem

 Listen to my poem Two Diverging Roads

Prologue to Two Diverging Roads: 

Why do men have nipples? Because a fetus is created female until the seventh week, when chromosomes decide whether a fetus will be born male. 

According to the theory of reincarnation, every time we’re reborn, we choose our fate, i.e. our gender and the circumstances in which we are born. 

Two Diverging Roads

Imagine how close you were to the precipice, 

How slim the probabilities, 

When you stood trembling at that terrible chasm, 

You knew nothing, you knew everything,

When the apathetic hands of creation,

Plunged you deep in that obscure, dubious, surreptitious well, 

Inside the impossible darkness of a woman’s womb,

An egg, a zygote, a blastocyst, an embryo, then you had a heart.

A precarious amorphous thing, you turned into a tenacious fetus,

Burrowing under her skin, tearing out of her flesh, sucking on her energy, feeding on her blood, her breath was your air.

In the thunder and roar of her heartbeats, you heard a ticking clock, threatening you that time is running out,

Inside all that chaos, and fear, and turmoil, two lives diverged before you:

In the first, you live like a king, in the second you follow the king’s procession.

In the first, doors open for you. Opportunities lay at your feet. On a shiny silver platter, you’re offered every flavor of freedom, privilege and entitlement. In the second your fate is sealed, your options are few, your ambitions, your dreams, your hopes, a colorful, exotic bird, its wings clipped to stop it dreaming of the sky.

In the first you can hesitate, stall, falter, lapse, slip, blunder, fail, and fail, and fail, and fail, and all of your mistakes are swept under the rug, forgotten, erased. In the second you’re disciplined, and judged, and alienated, and dehumanized, and shunned, and shamed, and punished, and ostracized, and persecuted, and prosecuted. You are taught that society cast and molded the chains of your disgrace without a key.

In the first you walk, you skip, you run, you jump, you’re light, you’re carefree, you rip/tear the shirt off your back, not fearing assault or attack. In the second, you are taught to be afraid, to be careful, to always be alert, to carry mace, to stay close to home, not to go alone, not to go far, to keep your head down, to dress modestly, to walk apologetically, to find a safer route, to come home before dark.

In the first a benevolent gentle God you yourself created takes your hand, answers your prayers, leads you, saves you, forgives you, exalts you. In the second a sexist, misogynistic, ruthless, hostile God controls your body, degrades your mind, diminishes you, promises you nothing but punishment and burning.

Two roads split before your eyes, 

Two roads that lead to two very different lives, one well-trodden and plowed, the other riddled, with hardship, and strife.

And in all this tumult, loss, and confusion. You chose the first. 

  

The Animal - A Poem

Listen to my poem The Animal

The Animal

Does a horse like to be mounted?

Weighed down by saddle?

Does a horse like to be pulled, and yanked by a bridle? 

Does a horse like to be tethered?

Does a horse like to be whipped, thrashed, broken, domesticated.

Does a horse like to race? Does a horse like to win us red and blue ribbons by jumping over higher and higher obstacles? 

Does a horse like to be blinded so as not see the danger that might come its way? 

Does a horse like to force breed, faster, more domesticated foals, to make us rich? 

Does a horse like its once vast, boundless world to be narrowed down to a fenced acre or two?

Or have we enslaved a horse for so long, that we stopped questioning it. We’ve conditioned ourselves into believing that that’s what a horse is for? That that’s why a horse exists.

Like a horse, before a man took possession of you, you loved your freedom, you were fierce, you broke the ground with your gallop.

Before you believed in men’s lies about religion, and sin, and modesty, at the sight of his whip you protested, you neighed, and shook your flowing mane proudly,  

You never stood still, you never waited, you refused to be tamed, you were pure air, you were fire. You leapt like a locust, you stroked terror with your snorting. You rejoiced in your strength. Afraid of nothing, you laughed at fear. Frenzied and excited you charged into boundless grassy plains, you soared like a hawk. 

That is why sometimes, a lot of times, when you’re bogged down by all of the demands of being mother, a wife, a girlfriend, a daughter, a sister, a man’s

Performing at Micro Theater and Station Hope

 

I'm super excited about my upcoming poetry performances:

The first is Friday May 24th, with Micro Theater https://www.microtheatercle.com/

I love that I was featured in The Land! https://thelandcle.org/stories/micro-theater-cleveland-brownhoist/

My second performance will be with Station Hope https://www.cptonline.org/performances/seasons/2023-2024/station-hope-2024/

Station Hope will be a very special event, since it's taking place at Saint John Episcopal Church in Ohio City. The Church is one of the oldest buildings in Cleveland and is a part of the underground railroad movement. All performances on Saturday will be about Social Justice and social change.