- First is Becky Almadovar.
Am I close?
Good.
She describes herself as a rubber band ball,
a colorful, bouncy and unpredictable.
She takes interest in all areas of art
and is an aspiring writer,
working on a book called Soap Box Essays.
About her life and strong opinions on various topics.
She is an animal rights activist
who enjoys all kinds of music, video games,
body modifications and standing out.
Please if you will, welcome Becky to the program.
(applause)
- Hi, my name's Becky.
I'm an alcoholic.
No, I just lied to you, I'm not.
I'm gonna to read four pieces for you today.
Three are about boys,
one's about my experience growing up
between two completely opposite families.
But first let's do the juicy boy poems.
The first one is about is about a guy I met,
his name is Jesse Miller.
I met him at Christ Camp in 2005,
where I thought for sure I was gonna be
burned at the stake for being a heathen.
Anyway, here's my testament for him.
And the sky seems pale against the two blue angels
they offer to faithless Jezebel hope and contentment
refuge from the raging demons in her head.
But the angels are also in her head.
And only in memory can she be saved
because now she's wandered too far from them
and though she longs to return to them she can't,
because God is punishing her for past,
present and future sins would be admonished.
So the faithless girl takes the demons
by the hand and says, "Take me,
"because I'm not worthy of such beauty."
The demons strip her of her face and wrested her hair.
Her soul sets to deteriorate
in the field of broken dreams.
But she lives on crawling blindly through shambles,
for in her blindness she's able to see nothing but angels
and they dress her wounds in moonlight sonatas.
Yeah, that was my first poem.
(applause)
Thank you.
My next piece is called The Stillborn Midnight Summer.
It's about Billy Cupilis and he's a compulsive liar.
I was undergoing serious issues
with men when I wrote this poem.
August 23, 2009.
A Stillborn Midnight Summer.
The fog has overhauled your dully-colored stillborn summer.
Me, I gauged new life with my new mistress.
Her fountain of youth lies among
the squatters of Alphabet City.
Me, I cast off my dead fallible shell
to taste the color of the earth
that you tried so hard to hide from me.
Fellating my mistress mother nature,
I drink the discharge of her tantric breath
as she pulls me forward from your
faded bluish bug-zapper light.
And spreads moss over your dance path of lies.
Me, my earth restores herself so I can look forward.
Daffodils polish off shame
and restore my floral crown florins.
Queen poison ivy, I stitch holes that
you used to pull me backward into.
Me, my restored kiss will respire your breath into me,
and immobilize your plague.
Me, I'm the succubus from your dreams and wet thoughts.
My sweet anther swells Aphrodite,
penetrator of mother nature's androgynous soul
and destroyer of the wicked viral.
That was poem number two.
(applause)
Thank you.
My third poem, I'm not really sure what it's about.
But, it's called the Dance of the Burning Windmill.
Like bleach on black jeans,
vision is diluted and my personals
fray disappointing threads.
The life has been washed away from
the wisteria under my boots.
That same wisteria that would pry things out of place.
But not the salt from my hair.
Only you can breathe life into me,
but you seem so cold lately.
And in the warm breath, in the dry air,
phantom hands appear in black lace.
Like roots, they run down the forearm,
dripping red to fill the empty space.
You left me comatose in an empty washroom
in a field of heathen after being stripped of my tether.
Giant windmills up on the hill are ablaze today.
Igniting flames that tear through the sky.
And smoke that chokes the life out.
Chokes like the strangler fig
that is attached to my backbone.
As you strike the match and leave me immobilized.
All I can do is watch everything as it happens
to me from the mirrors in your eyes.
That's poem number three.
(applause)
The last piece I'm gonna read
was inspired by Willie Perdomo,
from the poem he wrote called Where I'm From.
I wrote it in 2007,
and it's about growing up with
two completely opposite families.
My mother's side was from Guatemala.
Grew up in a very strict household.
And then my Dad's side was from Puerto Rico,
and basically they accepted everything about me.
(Becky chuckles)
So here it goes.
Where I'm from a see the million shades
of brown and silver from my Nana's hair
as she smoked her cigarette.
And how she looked so sophisticated holding it
with her long french-manicured fingernails.
She could do anything with those nails,
including braiding ribbons into my hair,
making cakes, and preparing oatmeal with raisins.
Where I'm from, the cigarette smoke in the kitchen
always went against the light from a half-opened window
and gave it this misty rain forest feeling.
The rain forest cockatiel named King
always took it upon himself to open his cage
and sit on the table at dinnertime.
His brilliant yellow mohawk and orange cheeks
always gave away his stealthiest positions.
He would cry out in defiance
when we started using the little red twist ties
from the bread to keep his cage door shut.
But eventually he mastered those too.
I was glad, because now he could join me
for his sunflower seed brunch.
Where I'm from there are tiny white flowers
that grew in the grass that I so carefully picked out
to place over King's grave when he died.
We always had funerals under the bee tree in our back yard.
Each faded purple or blue walkway stone
was a tomb to lost loved ones,
including various finches, iguanas,
tarantulas, snakes and fish.
Where I'm from, our yard was a pet cemetery,
and a botanical garden, and I was mermaid.
I spent morning 'til night in our giant blue pool
accompanied by my grandfather,
who would play his oldies tapes on his giant ghetto-blaster.
Nana would always yell at him for
trampling her flowers or knocking over pots.
But in my eyes, my grandpa could do no wrong.
My protector was a giant fat alley cat named Tyran,
who would hide in the tall grass and growl.
If anyone got too close,
he swatted them with his paws because he was fearless.
Where I'm from, I taste blood from my lips
because on Sunday nights my mother would come.
You see, I only spent weekends in Eden.
During the week I was exiled from it's safety.
I fought ferociously to stay with my grandparents.
And my mother literally had to pry my tiny hands
from the rail at the back door.
My shiny black Mary Janes took
an equally as harsh beating as I did.
Except their scars were white,
while mine were purple and blue.
It was like a witch had come to take me away
from the only happiness I ever had as a child.
I was confined to a basement with no smell of coffee,
no tiny green praying mantis in my grandfather's hands,
no surprises from Nana,
no ribbons, and no china dolls.
She'd stolen my sun,
and all I had left was the salt from my tears.
Where I'm from, I feel cold inside
and deprived of a childhood I deserved.
I feel abandoned by a father who
pretended not to see my bruises,
and refused to wipe my tears.
But how could he?
He was only a voice on the phone.
I felt alone while button-eyes watched over me
from my bed as I counted sleeping pills
and muffled out the whimpers from the next room
with tear-stained pillows.
I feel the sting of belts and open hands.
Where I'm from, my soul was kicked into overdrive,
and I was instilled with the heart of a warrior.
I got it from my Puerto Rican Nana.
My thirst for revolution?
That part will go down in Guatemala.
Thank you.
(applause)