slam poetry
Slam poetry: that magical mix of rhythm and rhyme.
School
School the place you go to just waiting for it to end. Your eyes never leaving the clock because that’s more entertaining than the blabbering teachers. The people that act as though they are your rulers and you must obey and believe everything they deed into your brain. Don’t even think about standing up for yourself because parents can be so much worse. School is like a war ground, fights, lectures, bullies, all until that clock strikes three and we can leave. The hot, crowded buses, the long car rider line, the line kids who sat forgotten at the lunch tables. Once Home the agonizing stress, anxiety, depression that comes with all those assignments that come crashing through your head at all hours of the day. But don’t even think about forgetting one, not doing one, failing one because if you even consider any of these the hell you experience at school comes to fuck up the rest of your life. You parents act as though you're a disappointment, failure, slacker when you can’t catch up with all the shit and disorders crowding your brain. They don’t see how much you are drowning, they just see a failure who can’t swim and instead of helping you. Maybe throwing you a raft they create waves. They create storms that throw you around like you are a piece of paper until you learn your place. Until you learn that you are nothing more than a grade. A number score that defines who you are and who you are going to be. If you can’t learn to swim than you get forgotten. You get left behind by all those who you thought loved you. If you slack of for even a day than you are seen as lazy, a failure who can’t get off their goddamn phone for even a minute to do your work. So you can make yourself swim and be that little puppet that everyone expects you to be or you can drown and be hated by everyone. There is no third option, there is no second chance. And once that weekend finally comes around it’s gone in an instant. When summer finally comes around it lures you into a false sense of security. Causing you to forget everything creating that hellscape every wretched year after wretched year. It doesn’t end, it doesn’t get easier, it just changes it’s looks and comes back the next year. And once you get a job you don’t get summers off, jobs never end until you are to old to live by yourself and your life is wasted away.
By Madisen Kirby8 years ago in Poets
Skeletons
Turn on the light and greet the skeletons in your closet. Make sure your grip is firm and confident for they've been sizing you up; even when they hang dormant like the styles of your eighth grade year. Pretending it never happened doesn't erase it from existence, and acting as if it does not matter doesn't exempt you from acceptance. I mean, you are here, and now the baggage you carry doesn't lighten so you might as well bear the burden with tone's eyes. Pick up life and learn to let go of the dead weight cancer that killed your brother. That hushed your mother. That buckled your father's knees after raised hand "Si, se puede! (Yes, we can)" stand. The poison that ran through his veins stops at your bloodline. You've been given nothing but time wasted on another who gave no love only themselves. Go ahead, curse and cry into open air blaming others for your own thousand mile stairway to little hell. Forgiven by everyone except those same eyes that threw in the towel at the chance of new health. Stay buried and blistered like the forgotten sister, who's been abused similar to mother figure. The sound of being silenced like fitted shoes given by father figure. This vicious cyclone that throws everything around except respect reflects through a jagged mirror that does cut. New scars on skin but not on mine. Old scars off skin but only in mind. This condemning witch hunt only stopped when the sight of yourself being burned at the stake. Don't be fooled by the dead weight hate to believe this was done by mistake. Life will eventually lead back to this soft soil, deep grave that holds your forgotten name. You haven't been led astray, just have faith in being raised by that newfound Love's hand. Being dusted off by the same hand to behold mind's promised land. You've been made anew to create this path you choose; striding through death's valley of gossip and secular news. Nothing has changed, only you. Nothing is the same, only you. This is called an elevated view. Follow the breadcrumbs back to the devil's trap singing a sweeter tune than you were given to use. Being a moving mountain with a lighthouse that's no longer striped black and blue bellowing "give me your tired, your poor huddled masses" all the while nurturing the conquering Love that has been anticipated in foretold lore. Finally snatching back the cat's tongue with loose lips building ships designed to fair seas we skilled sailors have seen. Collectively deciding our destiny and it all starts by turning on the light. Greeting your skeletons. Open the door Love is waiting. Fall head over heels into yourself and catch this new, refreshing breath with true intent to figure out the rest.
By Matthew Hernandez8 years ago in Poets
