The Metamorphosis Diaries

Chapter 12 - Vintage Recordings of Montages of Farewells

CHAPTER 12

"There is a special kind of emptiness that you feel when you get your heart broken

Every nerve in your body becomes cold, numb

Your eyes are lenses

Your hands are a shelf

Your ears are a subwoofer

And every thing you do becomes senseless."

The crowd at Coco reacted with thunderous silence as I liberated myself with literacy. This was where I belonged; a place I always felt safe, loved, and appreciated. No matter how crazy I felt here, someone loved what I had to say. Slam Poetry had become me, and I had become Slam Poetry.

"There is a special kind of emptiness that you feel when you don't have a heart

When you don't know what it feels to have your heart throb, or your heartbroken

But the best thing you have to hold onto is a special kind of heartache

Its called yearning, and dreaming

I've felt this kind of pain

Where you have so much time on your hands that you can only think

But you have nothing and no one to think about

So you think about everything

What's wrong with me

Why can't I get them to look this way

Is it my hair

Is it my body."

I knew whom the words were for. Not for Darren, not for my friends, but they were for me. Tears brimmed my black-lined eyes, blurring the crowd like a sea of fish.

"There is a special kind of emptiness you feel after you press the end button

This one is physically cold

Where your bedroom feels hallowed 

And your skin is alive with the scary kind of chills

As I lay stripped of my dignity

With dry hands and wet eyes

And I have so much time on my hands that i can only think

But i have nothing and no one to think about

So i think about everything and everyone 

What's wrong with me

Why can't I get them to look this way

Is it my hair

Is it my body

Is it my voice."

This wasn't my first time. I've written countless poems about feminism and love and 'black girl problems', but I don't know how much they really meant to me. There was one, once, the poem that made me fall in love with poetry, but the glaze of the glamour it brought is a distant memory.

I remember the words, though. Love Notes. I wrote it about one of the first guys I ever thought I loved. It was freshman year, and he was a junior. He was chubby and giddy, and I could get lost in his blue eyes. Sam was his name. He's a part of my story, too.

"There is a special kind of emptiness that someone with anxiety feels

You become paranoid, scared

Your reflexes are a barricade

Every beautiful and every thank you

Ricochets off of you like a fresh water tide to latex

I have sad days on vinyl

Goodbyes on vinyl

A vintage, recorded montage of farewells

Greetings from people who have walked out before they walked in

You get used to the emptiness

Personalize the space with your favourite trinkets and photographs

My space is black

There's a painting of a woman on the wall with a sliding window

The woman is white

Her body is not

There's a collection of CD's on the floor, and a bed that has been ripped apart by sleeplessness in the middle

No doors

I've made it my home."

I wrote poems about feelings; I told poems so I could learn what they were about. Right now, this poem is about comfort. It's about faces, and how faces are not feelings, and how feelings are not emotions. It's about... The comfort of wearing a mask.

"There's a special kind of emptiness you feel when you're alone

I guess we all are sometimes

Alone in our bedrooms on a friday night

Table for one at McDonalds, Tuesday afternoons

Blue eyes, green eyes

Pink hair

The 0.4 percent

The weekends when you have so much time on your hands that you can only think

But have nothing and no one to think about

So you think about everything, everyone, anything, something, nothing...

Whats wrong with me

Why can't I get them to look this way

Is it my hair

Is it my body

Is it my voice

Is it my skin

Is it me?

Is it the reason they say to me: Why you wannah fly, Black girl? You ain't ever gonna fly...

And I tell them I prefer to live my life with my feet on the ground but my head in the clouds

And that dream

Right there

Yeah, I've made it my home."

The crowd rang of deep 'ahs' and snapped their fingers as I left the stage.

And I saw him. The God. Him and a girl of similar height and age hunched over their coffees and ray bans as they exited the coffee house. I watched as his shoulder length hair blew briefly in the cold, January winds. She wrapped an arm around his, and they led each other off into the night.