Poetry by Over The Rainbow Festival Participants
The following pieces are journeys of the heart from young writers here in Skagit County.
They are spoken word, and you are invited to read them aloud and hear as the words take life.
Our thanks for their courage.
The Outsider
I'm breathing faster.
My chest tightening
My heart beating at a pace I've never felt before
Sweat slipping down my face until it soaks into my shirt
The sound in my ears,
That ringing
It's so loud
I know I made a mistake
I told you
I told you I was sorry.
I told you I could fix it
I TOLD you I could be straight.
I told you.
But you don't believe me.
Nor do you care.
And that is why we are here today
Everything is spinning
I'm no longer where I was
I can hear the rush of the river water beneath me
My feet are dangling
You have a hold of my hand.
Your grip threatening to let go
I'm still apologizing.
When it comes time for you to release me to my death,
The water shifts to ground
Your hand to air.
I'm so scared.
I can feel the urine as it runs down my leg.
It only takes a few seconds for you to come into view
You and them
Waving those signs
"Kill All Fags"
I'm on my hands and knees
I'm begging, pleading for you to change me
I don't want to be like this.
I'm promising.
You just shake your head.
You've already decided on a solution.
It's too late for me
I feel it before I see it
It felt cold
So cold
And then I was gone
It only takes one bullet
For you to erase my sins.
One bullet.
Just because I'm gay.
Cherie Baggett
Untitled
No longer, am I
the angry Queer.
The overly sensitive Fag.
The stupid belligerent Dyke.
No longer, am I
Your stupid fucking stereotype.
I am not what you will expect.
I am more than that.
I am a human being.
A living, breathing, human being.
But even more,
I am the epitome of unconditional love.
No longer will I just sit and listen
to your nonsensical blabbering about
who you think I am or am not,
because I am above that.
I am the Queer in your english class.
I am that Fag sitting at your lunch table.
I am the Dyke walking down your hallway.
Even more,
I am damn proud of it.
And you can never take that from me.
Living, breathing, human being.
Just like you.
And in a way, not like you.
Totally, completely opposite of you.
Alienated from you.
Partially by my own design,
partially by ignorance.
By your unwillingness to come to me
with an open mind and open heart.
But hey what should I expect.
from people who have grown up
being taught hatred, and cruelty.
People who have grown up with the tagline
"That's so gay."
But you know what.
That's okay.
I'm fine with that,
because after all these years
I have come to not give a shit.
So don't change up your vocabulary because of me.
I know how to deal with it.
But wait a second, I'm not done yet.
Although I am comfortable enough
with myself to disregard anything that
you may say to me, around me, or behind my back,
others are not.
The stories are endless, countless, infinite.
The stories about the kids pushed so deep inside their closets,
the kids battered day in and day out with fists and feet and words.
The stories about these kids that commit suicide because of the way
people make them feel on the inside.
The stories are endless, countless, infinite.
So don't change your vocabulary because of me.
Don't change the way you act, think or feel.
Don't even do it if you feel guilty.
Do it because you want to end this.
This vicious circle of hate, and violence, and ignorance.
Do it because you could save a life.
Do it because you could free someone of the self-loathing feelings
that they hold deep within themselves.
So maybe I am still the angry Queer,
the sensitive Fag, the stupid belligerent Dyke.
So maybe I am still your stupid fucking stereotype.
I recognize that, but I am trying to spread a message
that will hopefully breed love, and acceptance
for everyone.
Starting now.
Cherie Baggett
Untitled Piece 1
I'm being smacked in the face.
I'm 15 years old and I'm being smacked in the face.
I feel like I'm being smacked in the face,
as I look in the mirror.
As I look in the mirror and see a body,
a body that should not belong to me.
A body with breasts, and hips, and a place we are
taught to be called the bad touch place.
A place where hands should not roam
in the middle of the day, or ever.
A body, this body which is mine,
to have and to hold and to demolish however I please.
This body with gender so fluid it rocks
the boat in my heart and the floaty in my brain.
It sails my ship of love with waves, and waves, and waves.
Do you ever wave at yourself when you look in the mirror.
When you look in the mirror and see a stranger so strange
there could never be one stranger?
Like my body, my gender, my sex.
My sex so hot it burns when I touch it.
Touch me.
My body.
This body that I think I don't agree with.
This solid, warm, piece of flesh.
This body with clothes that fit so right, but that really don't fit at all.
These clothes that help me lie to myself about my body and who it belongs to...
This body belongs to me.
I'm 18 years old and my body belongs to me.
My body, this body with breasts and hips,
and a place called my vagina.
A place, my vagina, that I can do almost whatever I please with.
A non-repressed, understood, enjoyed part of my body.
This body, my body, the body I own.
Finally, a body that I love.
A body that is the same at 15, but is so much different.
A body that is not playing along with my bullshit games any longer.
A body, my body with clothes that don't fit right at all,
but that really do fit perfectly.
These clothes that help me tell the truth , express myself,
and connect myself to my body.
My body.
And now I realize that it wasn't about the clothes at all.
It wasn't about how hot I thought I was, or how hot I thought she though I was,
or how hot they really thought I was.
It was about me and them.
Me and them and what I thought they were supposed to see,
supposed to not know about me.
Me and my love for all things boy, less the penis.
Me and my love for Hermione, and not Harry,
for Jasimine, not Aladdin, for that girl in the back of my 6th grade class.
That girl who I no longer talk to because high school changes things.
High school changed me.
High school claimed my soul, and soon will spit me out
into a world with such a tainted sense of what is real that
I may just start to walk backwards, and to cluck when I mean to bark,
if I don't do that already.
What if my view of reality is so diluted that I am already not seeing things as they truly are.
Fuck high school, but I needed to be changed.
I needed to be better.
Like my body.
My body which is mine and will forever be that way.
A body, this body, my body.
I am no longer being smacked in the face.
Cherie Baggett
More to come. . .