#glori b

[adderalldust]

“Fuck humble. Vanity is only a sin because a woman who believes she deserves good things is harder to comodify.”

Glori B. (via Write About Now)

[cigarettekin]

"In elementary school the boys used to joke they could feel earthquakes anytime I ran by, and yeah that shit made me cry when I was 8 but like 20 years later I'm like hell yeah fucking right I make the earth move when I walk because that's what a goddess does when she takes comporial form! You wanna feel the earth move? I can shatter your world."

[beingglori]

This SxSW I, along with several other Austin Poetry Slam regulars, was invited to perform at the closing party for the 2016 Personalized Learning & Student Success Summit. They graciously recorded and posted videos. 

Check out one of my teacher poems, dedicated to my students Guadalupe and Martin, “Yolamos.”

[beingglori]

4.9.16 - Identity - 30/30

Every day in April I will attempt to write a first draft of a new poem, and post them here. Please feel free to follow along and share. Happy National Poetry Month!

Identify She asks me how I identify and I breathe for a long moment-- recite easy pronouns and balk at the rest; I am not at work. Here, it is safe to be who I am... I am nearly thirty; I thought I would know by now. I say It hasn't mattered in a long time. And in this forest clearing of queer and quiet safe space, we talk about the strength it takes to hold a person with hands full of trauma. Here, it is safe to be what I am, if only I knew what that was. I say, I want everything until I can reach it, and realize my hands are webbed and covered in scales. She asks how long it took before I felt whole again, asks if I am strong enough to hold water. I stare at my soft hands and tell her, A fluid thing never breaks, it just splits itself in smaller pools.

[beingglori]

4.8.16 - Where - 30/30

Every day in April I will attempt to write a first draft of a new poem, and post them here. Please feel free to follow along and share. Happy National Poetry Month!

Where I only cry in elevators or bathroom stalls or my own bed, except when I cry in my car or in my classroom after the children go home. I almost never cry at parties, unless there is a balcony and a sliding glass door. There have been exceptions made for six to eight coat closets, a handful of janitor's closets, and the closet of the room I shared with my little sister growing up. I have been known to cry in the kitchen, while everyone else plays board games in the dining room, and also on the playground when we were young and they still considered a concrete tube an appropriate scape for play. Once, I may have cried in the back seat of my best friend's car, quietly, pretending to sleep. Or sitting by the creek down the path from her house. Or in Sears at the mall when I was six, huddled in the center of a circular clothing rack, a curtain of church dresses in pastel tones obstructing me from view. I cry on stage, of course. All this to say, I only cry when I am alone. So on that day, when you were the one to find me in the dimly lit, empty library choking down another shot of poison from someone I no longer love, I did not know what to do: run? or pretend to be alright? or bury my face into your sweater, and find away to be alone with you?

[beingglori]

4.7.16 - Give - 30/30

Every day in April I will attempt to write a first draft of a new poem, and post them here. Please feel free to follow along and share. Happy National Poetry Month!

Give

How many men have I told, "I guess that would be okay,"

and let my fingers only loosely grip a thing I did want when I also wanted more to be perceived as a giving person:           gracious           memorably kind           unselfish           not a bitch

and felt him take my next meal out of my hungry hands when I had worked hard to earn or find or create something for myself,

and watched him sink his fingers in before I could clarify that I would give up anything even when I didn't want to because someone taught me that giving things up was the mark of a noble and holy woman,

and felt my voice soft when I told him how belonging that thing was to me, without ever being able to articulate precisely           that it was mine           that I did want it           that it does not matter how little a thing it is to give up           that I am always giving everything up

and fell silent at hearing him say, "I don't know what you want me to say" when I know that he knows what I want him to say,

when what I should have said was (but never said was but could not say was but would not be heard saying was) "This is mine. Please don't take it."

[beingglori]

4.6.16 - Prelude to a Crash - 30/30

Every day in April I will attempt to write a first draft of a new poem, and post them here. Please feel free to follow along and share. Happy National Poetry Month!

Prelude to a Crash Just before midnight, in the car, on the drive home, it occurs to me that I have forgotten something else, another promise I do not quite have the energy to honor. Still, in my kitchen, I wash the spoons by hand so I can eat cold cereal for dinner in front of the television before I try to measure out whether I have anything left to shower, or grade papers, or clean the litter box, or whether I am fully spent. The day has stuck to me, tight knot of sharp burrs. There is no want for opportunities to take care of the people around me, but now, when I need care, there is no one around.

[beingglori]

4.5.16 - Refraction - 30/30

Every day in April I will attempt to write a first draft of a new poem, and post them here. Please feel free to follow along and share. Happy National Poetry Month!

Refraction

I didn't want to come tonight. Some days the presence of other people is the dim glow of evening fireflies, some days it is the swirl of fruit flies in a kitchen I feel guilty for not cleaning.

I could have sat alone at home, both glad to be alone, where no one can hate me, and stewing in the fear that the alone would spill over the rim and spread out and be all that was left for me to drink.

I don't know whether it is weak or self care or self-indulgent to take a hiatus from the thing I love because men keep being mean to me?

Does it matter why the bruises form green and blue and yellow under my skin? And what hurts will I be forgiven for feeling? Which sad eyes receive comfort, and which sad eyes receive scorn? Imagining others imagine motive for my tears does not keep my eyes dry, but rather, makes me want to hide my face.