3rd place!

They say 3rd place winners are always happier than second. I agree. 3rd place is best. This is where I landed at the slam last night, which meant a whopping $15 for me, and an incense holder which I actually really needed.

I was stuck at fourth for a while, and then just wasn't placing, so I'm pretty happy to have gotten where I did. Also, being up on stage with a whole bunch of men always makes me feel good, like I'm representing the ladies. I also don't feel too bad about losing to Scruffmouth, the very deserving 1st place winner. I think second went to David Perez, who I've never seen before but who I thought was really great. So it's all good!

My second poem is one that didn't score too well last time, but I just believed in it. I still do, actually, even though I haven't gotten too much feedback about it in particular. Here it is--imagine me reading it full of passion.

Want


When I come home,
I want a package in my mailbox
that's full of secrets and so stuffed with stuff
it leaks with the scent of the person who sent it.

When I come home,
I want text messages and emails in my inbox
so jammed with jam I can feel the skin of the person who sent them
on my fingertips.

When I come home,
I want roses and lavender on my bedside table,
Calendula and lily of the valley
Queen Anne's Lace and broken
peony petals so brimming to the brim they fall from the box
with the desire to touch my fingertips.

When I come home, I want to be home.
I want to feel home,
with you in my bed,
waiting to hold me
with your hands in my hair and lips
so full with full they break over my fingertips.

When I come home,
I want to feel the universe
like I was skinny dipping in the Amazon River,
so ample with electric eels their
current slides over my body
until it becomes a part of me.

I want to touch my face in the mirror
so deep it breaks and
silver slivers of glass cut my fingertips
to draw blood so red its cardinal carmine wine

When I come home,
I want to veer voluptuously into the
screaming seams of the universe
on a shattered path of obsidian obstacles
and indigo indecencies
until I ignite with inchoate beauty
so awful it tears me from all four corners.

I want to feel lost until I feel found again.
I want to be blue until I can be aquamarine.
I want to lose hope
so I can find it again.
I want to forget the feeling of my fingertips til I can touch them again.

and then
and then
and then

when I find home again,
when I come home again,
when I come home,
so gorged with gorge i am lying on
broken shards of ultramarine fingertips

then

then I'll be home.