#avoixhaute

[lauralethe]

Les robes d'été - à voix haute #22

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J'aurais pu attendre un mois, attendre de fêter la première année de cette newsletter, mais dans un mois, si tout se passe comme prévu, je serai quelque part entre Kuala Lumpur et Angkor, couverte d'anti-moustique, en boule sur un siège de bus - ou dans une situation approchante. Je saute dans un avion dans moins d'une semaine pour aller faire prendre l'air à ma tête et apprendre à mettre de la distance là où je n'ai jamais su ne serait-ce que placer une respiration. La relative régularité des publications va clairement en prendre un coup, mais en attendant, je ne pouvais pas partir sans vous laisser un petit cadeau. Ça parle de bisexualité, mais  et ça m'a presque fait pleurer. C'est pas la première fois, vous me direz. (Et sans vouloir étaler ma réclame, sinon, sachez que si ça vous intéresse, mon dernier zine est épuisé en version papier mais dispo en PDF, je mets le lien tout en bas, voilà, j'ai fini, poutous.) Cassidy Foust - "The Knife That Carves"

There’s a boy in my fiction class who’s gaze slides down every girls sundress. His eyes are full of kleptomania as if He’s already planning what parts of their bodies he would steal first. I watch him as he does this I know when he stares at me My heartbeat turns pouring rain against my chest but, Sometimes my gaze slides down the same girls sundress And I wonder what she tastes like, Don’t ask her name but I wonder how she feels cupped in my palm. Sometimes I describe my breasts as apples, or grapefruit, or melons, Treat my body as something to devour. Name it as if its something used for consumption. I’ve been learning this for years: My body silver platter just for their enjoyment. So sometimes I forget that being prey Doesn’t mean that I can’t be hunter. And then it’s saturday, and I’m with my best friend Our bodies numb with alcohol, And I’m straddling her, Our clothing shed like a snakeskin train from my couch to my bedroom, And most of this night is a blur: Hands, tongues, breasts, breasts Our bodies knotting together like ivy. This new flesh that is so close to my own. We ask “is this ok”, “is this ok”, “is this ok” And we spit the words out to quickly Neither wanting to be the one left holding on, The one who forgets to fill the space with permission. So when I black out that night I don’t worry. I assume my lips have carried out their script. Assume I know what trespass feels like, I would have stopped before I got there. But I’ve been learning this for years: My body beast, her body feast, My body never the knife that carves it. I may not crack the bone, but I do drink the marrow. Sometimes it so sweet that I forget that the violence is still mine. So, I don’t text my friend in the morning. I don’t wonder if my breathe left scars. I check under the bed every night for monsters, but never the mirror. Not because I do not know what lurks But because this beast is a part of me I do not know how to kill. Believe me I’ve tried. I only masturbate to the thought of straight boys, And I’ve stopped talking to cute girls at parties And this is not a fear of wanting them, But a fear that I don’t know how to love any way but devouring. But I’m still staring at the sundress, And I still haven’t texted my best friend, And no matter how gently I hold her hands I’m scared I still have claws. ---------- Demain il Fera Nuit (PDF) : https://payhip.com/b/dmwj

[yannick-debain]

A Voix Haute - Yannick Debain

Depuis toujours, en fait, depuis tout petit, mes parents et ma grand mère m’ont transmis le gout des contes, des fables, des mots, c est peut être une des raisons pour lesquelles je suis devenu comédi

partagez si vous aimez

[lesondesmains-blog]

#lesondesmains 282/365 #main #hand #projet365 #eloquence #artoratoire #avoixhaute

[pekaho]

‘À voix haute’, Stéphane de Freitas, Ladj Ly

Le film sort en salle aujourd’hui en France. Il est vibrant, porté par un puissant amour de l’humanité. C’est beau et ça fait chaud au cœur.

Bonne chance et beau succès à toutes les équipes, ainsi qu’à Indigo et Eloquentia!

<3

Pk

[lauralethe]

Un geste d'amour - à voix haute #19

Parfois, la beauté et la joie font un bout de chemin ensemble. Mais cette sensation sourde, toute moite d'émotion et d'humilité, qui envahit la poitrine et la gorge, nous connecte à différents niveaux, de l'empathie aux réminiscences douloureuses, comme une aiguille qui coudrait toutes nos mains ensemble. Rien ne me fait me sentir aussi proche d'un-e inconnu-e qu'une tristesse aussi profonde que celle-là. [CW: maladie, mort] John Ratz - "Love in a Time of Desperation"

Tout ce que je peux vous dire sur John Ratz, c'est qu'il a un homonyme qui est pasteur. Pas merci Google. ---------- The body can decide to stop living in stages. The slow death is the body whispering a quiet "No... no... no...", until some vital part refuses to keep working, some important piece of you does not consent to being alive any more. The way i understand my sister's disease is that it attacks everything at once. I could write a list of symptoms, but these days it looks like something turning off all of the lights inside her. She is 23 and cannot see. She is 23 and cannot walk. Cannot think. She is 23 and already looks like an abandonned building, so much of her has already decided to stop working. We live in a time of miracles. Medecine is the science of forcing your body to work wether it wants to or not. it is forcing you, the body, to bow down to you, the mind, because the brain is the only organ that is afraid of dying. But i told you, my sister's disease attacks everything, including the delicate network of neurons and synapses that makes her a person, and the slow collaps of her body losing the ability to function, my big sister cannot decide if living is worth it any more. Once, she lost a lot of weight, her jaw refused to work right, more food ended up on the front of her shirt that in her mouth, her body hunched itself into a claw and for the first time in our lives, there was less of her than there was of me. My parents took her to the hospital and she came home a week later with a tube in her stomach, she eats from a bag now, no swallowing involved, just the slow mechanical work of the pump forcing paste directly into her stomach. We forcefeed her and i have to believe that this is an act of love in a time of desperation. There was no discussion of allowing this to be the end. My mother said the G tube was the first time it felt like betraying my sister's body in order to keep her alive, and Christine didn't even get a say in it. Sometimes, i imagine she stopped eating on purpose. When she could speak, she said the seizures felt like God stabbing a knife into her brain and twisting, and i have to wonder if anyone really wants to be rescued back from an agony like that. Sometimes, i love her so much i wish we could let her die. Some day, another important part of my sister's body will stop functioning. I imagine a thousand nightmares where some terrible accident claims my parents, and i hold her life in my hands, and there's no way i would let her die. But I wonder how far i would go to force her to live, and wether that is love, or the stubborn pride insisting that as long as i can force her heart to keep beating, i never have to say goodbye.

[lauralethe]

Une rue, une nuit - à voix haute #16

Anthony Ragler - "Target"

Anthony Ragler est un rappeur et poète de Brooklyn.

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The night of the verdict, we were parading through the streets before the phone call. Silenced by the hush of a gavel through summer air, we trudge our way to the L train, which on this night means Luck. Or Lost. Or Lives. Or Law. As in: we are lucky we have not lost our lives; the law won’t protect us. All that matters now is “Suspicious”. “Suspicious” is the gap between innocent and funeral. My brother is screaming that we are endangered. He only sees red, thinks it’s the shadow of the target on his back. The white people look at him like he’s a rambunctious bullet; they know not how far we are willing to take this protest. I am the only one not outraged. Didn’t expect any different. Post-racial society, is a pretty way to say “Hope for justice, don’t expect it.” An older black man says: “The way to avoid being mistaken for a hoodlum is to present yourselves better. Stay in school and stop sagging your pants.” As if we were responsible for our own deaths. He is good intentions and horrendous delivery. Telling 12 Black youth that the system isn’t working against us, but they wouldn’t call it a system if it wasn’t working. Being black in America is like being a grizzly on hunting grounds. Everyone fears our claws, but claws are futile against bullets. We drag towards mybrother’s house where death weighs us all down. A friend says “Weren’t we coming here to party?” We go buy drinks, like that would numb the numb we already aren’t feeling. The night is plantation humid. My friends are mahogany carved flasks,dancing their targets off in a drunken slur. This night has made lovers out of lone wolves. To us, this is the Black Y2K. This is the beauty of my people, how we turn tragedy into celebration. Something outside is trying to kill us. This is how we mourn a brother’s death. This is not the end of our lives. It is the beginning of the fight for them.

[lauralethe]

Change de costume - à voix haute #13

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Une première, et une exception : j'ai déjà partagé un poème d'Anna Binkovitz, et je n'ai vraiment pas pour objectif de me répéter dans les artistes partagés. Mais l'idée que certain.e.s d'entre vous pourraient ne jamais entendre Asking For It m'était insupportable. Oui, insupportable. Je suis une âme délicate. Et vous ne le savez pas encore, mais vous allez probablement prendre un tel pied que vous allez me remercier. Asking For It n'est pas seulement rédigé à la virgule près, il est aussi impeccablement délivré, et le pouvoir comique grave d'Anna Binkovitz fait mouche alors même que je l'ai assez revu pour connaître le texte par coeur. Si vous avez gardé les précédentes newsletters, vous pourrez vous replonger dans les premiers envois et retrouver To the Boy I Would Have Lost My Virginity To, qu'elle avait écrit quand elle était plus jeune, pour admirer sa vibrante évolution en seulement quelques années.

(cw: rape culture)

  ---

In my recent internet travels, I stumbled across a visual that comments on rape culture: six female forms are depicted in various states of dress, from completely covered to totally naked. Under each, the caption “not asking for it.”

Predictably, the citizens of Facebook responded, “Of course naked ladies always wanna have sex! Of course your outfit can mean you want to be raped.” But in my experience, one of the chief perks of having sex with an adult is that if they want something, they can ask for it.

For instance, if I’m at dinner with my mom and I want her to pass the salt, I don’t put on my special salt costume. I ask for the salt! With my word place!

Now imagine if you will, my young travelers, a strange world where all of us, regardless of beard, bra, or body hair can only express our wants and needs through our clothing. Because of the different vestements everyone will need, we will all have to drag large steamer trunks with us everywhere. Airport security would be a nightmare, like “Excuse me, sir, you can’t bring this knife suit on the plane with you.” “How else am I supposed to tell the stewardess that I want the chicken?! Fuck you, TSA!”

Steakhouses will be a walking health code violation. People draping themselves in raw meat. If you want your steak rare, j ust douse yourself in blood before coming in. Don’t worry, you won’t get salmonella… unless you ask for it.

But wait! Our perilous trek has yet to encounter the gravest danger of all: changing into our costumes.. Of course, there will be government changing booths scattered about like stop signs - But these cannot account for the emergencies. Say I’m running late for work and I need my bus to stop. Whilst yanking on my giant hand suit so I can wave the bus down, I will, for a moment, be naked. And if anyone sees me, we must immediately have sex. No time even for the condom costume - which is just putting on a condom - no! We must fuck post haste! And if anyone stumbles upon us, mid-coitus, they’ll have to join in and our orgy will swell like a giant naked peach of sex juices.

Injuries will be rampant, from sprained vaginas to dehydration, if only someone could change into their 911 costume, but no… Hospitals are no safe haven, people are naked there all the time, just think about it: sponge baths. The morgue. Childbirth. The person in labor will be naked from the waist down, and how do you take something out while putting something in?

You don’t! People would stay pregnant forever, no one would ever catch their bus, all the Home Depot flowerbeds would wilt and we would all die! Starve, but still fucking in the streets of our cities.

But you can save us from this impending apocalypse of naked: for the love of God and humankind, stop asking people’s clothing to have sex with you, And start asking people!

[lauralethe]

Sur le divan - à voix haute #12

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Pour beaucoup de gens, transformer ce qui les ronge en un objet, palpable ou immatériel, permet de dompter la bête. Ou ne pas la dompter, peut-être, simplement faire en sorte qu'il y ait déjà une arène, mettre en place une corrida, lui donner un public. Ne pas se laisser définir par un état, mais, au moins, par une action. C'est aussi le meilleur moyen pour fendiller les barrières qui nous isolent, laisser passer la lumière, permettre aux autres d'y presser un œil et peut-être saisir des bribes de ce qui se passe dedans. La métaphore est un outil qui, aligné dans le bon angle, lancé avec assez de force, peut traverser de part en part le plus épais des murs. Pour permettre à qui le voudra d'y presser son œil. Pour laisser passer un peu de lumière.

Patrick Roche est une bouille connue des scènes de spoken word aux Etats-Unis, avec sa voix reconnaissable entre mille, toujours au bord de se briser, et son attaque frontale des sujets de santé mentale. Il est également ambassadeur de la fondation JED, une organisation de prévention du suicide chez les étudiants.

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Couples Therapy

Every Thursday i go to couples therapy with my depression. He whispers in my ear to stay in bed for another day, Presses his palm to my chest, Afraid I'm going to escape the covers. After i scrape myself out of the shower, I still smell like him. Like midnight panic attacks, Like first name basis with the CVS pharmacist, Like "i'm not hungry, i already had a rice crispies treat today". Our sessions with our therapist are 50 minutes. We spend that time restating the same issues to her. We've been on again, off again since high school, But this time its been a solid year, so that's gotta mean it's getting pretty serious. She asks about my appetite. No i haven't been eating, but he likes me skinny It makes it easier for him to be big spoon, It's like i disappear in him, Like his body swallows mine. She asks if I've done anything with my friends lately... Not in a while, we usually stay in, My friends are the third wheel if we're out together. That's what happens when you've been with someone for so long. She asks if anything has changed since i started with the Zoloft. He digs his nails into the chair, grits his teeth. She asks again He gets... jealous, but Zoloft treats me well, Takes me to breakfast in the mornings, Feeds me french toast He got mad though... something like cheating on him, He threatened to take out the scissors so i threatened to see Zoloft even more. All of them. All at once. I almost... did. She asks if that was the night my friend took me to the healthcare center. Yeah... but it was just that one time, And the nurse said "no visitors", Took Zoloft away from me, So we got to spend some quality time as a couple again. Our therapist thinks I'm only with him because My father called my mother a whore Or because i still sometimes wish i were straight Or because I've never had a serious love life. She doesn't understand that this is the most serious relationship I've ever had She says "time's up, come back next week", He mutters "fine" under my breath, Slams the door on our way out. Our therapist said that there has been improvements over the past few weeks, That he and i will probably always be together, But that i'll be more independent soon. Lately I've been thinking more about that, Mornings when i wake up hungry, My body remembers how to leave the mattress on its own, Feels his arms shrink from my waist for a few hours So i can finish a poem, Watch parks and rec, Eat a sandwich, Or make the bed without crawling back into it. Even when he says that without him i would be an empty house Scraped clean and creaking And caving in. Sometimes i still think he's right, But last week i stepped onto the scale and i gained three pounds. It's only three pounds, But its all me. It's all... me.