I found this poem

My friend from college sent me this poem a few years ago. I sought about looking for it today after realizing something about it was still lingering with me. I found it, a very easy search through my gmail does the trick pretty nicely, and have decided to post it because I a bored and have little to do right now.


you see me naked

-elyse bellamy


I told myself I would keep my distance from you
And as the noise filters in I try hard not to wake up
Our bodies making good use of this futon and an old blanket
Your indescribable hands
Tangled in my hair
The sun rises, somewhere
A smooth blue glow on the horizon
And it seeps through the window as we're falling asleep
You held an apple to my lips before I could admit that I was hungry
You left your lighter in my car before I could admit I loved you back
And it's for real now
Because I'm in some girl's living room
Bodies lining the floor from the coffee table to the door and you're
Touching my stomach and
Whispering in my ear
Situation fades to backdrop whenever you're here
Now my t-shirt is wrinkled
My eyes are red and
I left my best defenses between the sheets of that bed
I'm brushing my teeth at the sink of an unfamiliar bathroom or
Watching a stream of steam and soap spiral down the drain
My skin slippery with shampoo
Trying to pretend that I'm not waiting for you to slip in through
that door that doesn't really close and
Kiss me on the mouth while I'm standing there with
Nothing
To hide with
Nothing to hide behind
A thin layer of chapstick the only thing
Keeping me intact
I let the towel crumple at my feet and
Find my way back to where you're waiting
On the pillow
I promised myself I wouldn't write a poem about this-
Shredded paper, oil pastels, your photograph clenched in my fist
But whenever my lips graze your cheek and my fingers find themselves
tracing your jaw
The only words that ever seem to surface are those three that
I'm not supposed to I'm not supposed to I'm not supposed to be
Saying and
In the back seat
Crushing a raspberry on my tongue
You reach out and make everything taste like a shiver
Pulling me into your coat and dissolving all discomfort-
(Was I cold? Is it winter?
Come here and do your magic and it'll all come flooding back…)
In a cheap motel
Moonlight spills onto the blankets
And you're smiling at me in the darkness so I cover my face
Worried you'll stare too long and realize that I'm not what you
wanted in the first place
And I need you too much
I think I need you too much
Because I passed out listening to the songs that you gave me and
Woke up alone, curled up on my bedroom floor
Feeling homesick for your fingertips and the pockets of your jeans
Waiting for something to go so wrong that there just isn't any
solution
And I can't believe that I fought this fever for so long
Now in the parking lot,
On the sidewalk
At the bottom of the basement stairs I stand there
Wondering how long we have before someone tells me not to touch you
and
Daydreaming about the next time I can fall into your arms
I just hope you know that this is new to me
And let's not talk about worthy,
I'm still struggling to understand this flickering image of December
Let alone the fact that you seem to accept all my flaws with
Open eyes and this gentle perfection
Your palm slipping under my head just before it hits the carpet
Spilling your drink on the sleeve of my jacket
Healing me with just one look and a carefully held breath
The memory of singing for you on the other side of the room
Shaking so violently I could barely remember the words
And the way you came to me when I had finished
Raw and perfect and re-assuring in my insecurity
Turned me shy in front of your eyes
Suddenly aware that you have that kind of x-ray vision I've been
seeking
And it occurs to me that if I keep shedding my armor
I might get hurt
But at this point I'm going to risk it
And let my gaze drift to you
Because I'm sleepless and helpless and I don't know what else to do
Stumbling through midnight, somewhere in town
Holding onto each other for dear life as the rain comes down
The clock is three hours fast but
We get the idea
He beats out a rhythm from the radio on the steering wheel
Changes lanes and
Switches gears
Icy tear-drops of water slowly slide down the glass
Your seatbelt forgotten
Your head in my lap
And if I had known you would see me naked
I would've washed my hands one more time
Because it's getting so easy to feel beautiful whenever your soul
touches mine
I want to take a picture
I want to remember everything
Because tomorrow morning I'll be in a place where
Nobody understands
And your warmth hasn't left me
My thoughts are a messy collage
Of everything I'm trying so hard to keep from fading
That conversation, that dollar bill, that mistake, that massage
Swallowing sobs and this scream that threatens to escape and call
your name
The silence impacted by my passion and who-knows-how-long-it'll-be-
until-I-see-you-again
And I'm making promises
Because I want to hold it all inside
And I'm replaying all the amazing things that you said
Over the achingly insistent voice in my head
And concentrating on emotions I'm doing my best to subdue
I realize there is no distance powerful enough
To keep me
From you

Performance Studies...for the people by the people

In light of all the really interesting things I have been reading about performance studies and performance ethnography (Conquergood et.al) I have decided to blog about it in a performance autoethnography style...who knows maybe this will turn into my paper for this week...

I look a the stack of papers I have to get through. There are a lot. Two classes this quarter-both about research methods. I never imagined I would be taking one methods course (none were required in my previous M.A. program-I should have known then right ;)!) let alone multiple methods courses at the same time. I mean I signed up for them-maybe I didn't know the class was a class theorizing about performance and maybe I thought it was more of a how-to. I mean I am not extremely creative-I'm not artsy-the most artistic thing I do is make cd compilations-good ones- but still. Lots of reading in both clases, some writing too. It shouldn't be too bad. If I can just get through Barthes, "The Pleasure of the Text," which reminds me of something painful and yet beautiful at the same time, like touching hot wax, it burns but I just keep wanting more.

(Btw) I just ate a cookie that tastes like marshmallows-that scares me because I do not eat marshmallows, I am not a vegan but the idea of gelatin really makes me feel ill. I have gotten most of my friends to stop eating gelatin even if they still eat meat because the idea that animals are produced for their connective muscle fibers to make nasty gelatinous substances is more grotesque than eating meat to them. I have to admit both sicken me slightly, but that is beside the point-right?

Back to my stack of papers. I pick up the first Conquergood-I read the opening lines. Immeadiately, I think, O.k. so you want to challenge normative modes of knowledge by offering this different methods of presenting your data-like performance-spoken word, art, daily activities like quilting, cooking, recipes..." Hasn't this been done before? Isn't this exactly what Alice Walker is advocating in the book, "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens" and isn't Audre Lourde advocating for reintroducing the body into the academy in "The Pleasure of the Erotic." They are not new concepts but of course white, straight (I am assuming) guy comes in and says it so veryone has to listen right? I don't want to be this negative-I swear it is the feminist in me-she likes to be a pessimist-she isn't exactly sure how to be any other way.

But I read on knowing that my initial reactions are far too simplistic he must have something more to say-something more to offer. And he does...Conquergood suggests that performance can challenge dominant ways of knowing and can challenge the way we do things in the academy. He is wanting to revolutionize the praxis/theory divide and give us new ways of knowing and opening up the everyday (ritualized) activities we engage in to be valued knowledge, that those kinds of knowledge are just as worth studying and knowing as something extremely positivistic. And how does he suggest this happen? By introducing the body back into our study. That our bodies can somehow hold us more accountable to the cultures we study than writings on a paper. That our bodily knowledge is undervalued and we need to integrate it back into what we do.

That's kind of big-HUGE if you think about it. Here is a man coming from privilege-he could be happy just leaving things as they are-goddess knows he's the kind of person that would really benefit from keeping such a system in place. But he wants to change it and not only that but he wants to do it ethically. He doesn't want to be the paternalistic hand of the father changing ways of thinking in the people that he studies-he doesn't want to go native, or save the natives, he just wants the body to be reintegrated into the way we know and then used to rearticulate the knowledge we have learned.

This is fascinating to my feminist side. The body which is so often on the female side of the male/female, man/woman, masculinity/femininity divide that for a "man" to suggest using the body to know seems completely foreign and outrageous (in the good way-I am feeling another candle wax moment coming on...). And I hate dichotomies-they do very little for anybody but limit them and express a system of language that dominates and benefits from a dichotomy. But as a "classically trained women's studies minor" we have to recognize the dichotomies before we dismantle and disrupt them. So maybe that is also what Conquergood is doing- queering the notions of scholarship and at the same time challenging traditional notions of the masculine and the feminine...maybe not but I thinkt he argument could be made.

But at the same time and my main critique is while he is advocating this totally radical thing-where did I read about it? A freaking peer reviewed journal article. Because we still have to value some of that traditional stuff and still do somethings in a traditional and normative way. It sucks. It's like here's a great idea-now if we could just get over that hump of will it ever be accepted? Which it won't not int he radical revolutionary way it needs to-but change is slow and a process and I am willing to wait it out-I mean I have to.

What else is there for me to do? But sit here and think about these things and try to offer what little I have-which happens to be myself. My brain, my thoughts, my insights. Because I know that for me without autoethnographical performances like those of Alix Olson and Staceyanne Chin I would not be the person I am today if it weren't for hearing those words of pain, and joy and taking those into my body letting the words consume me until they couldn't anymore and I just had to break down and cry because I did not think there was anything else I could do. Is that bodily enough for you?
--
I can just imagine her performing this at Michigan orange pants, tank top, wild hair maybe in two pigtails every word inciting some sort of movement with the occasional pause- for oh what's the word-i guess to work up her momentous orgasmically inclined potential...

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=52664609

Staceyann Chin's FALL AWAKENING (for sloane)

after too many movies
about honor

and faith
and the fury of time/the hours
unwrap moments for me to fill

the monotone hiss of the heater
has begun

new skin is shedding the nights I spent
aching for things not promised

wishes and horses and all that manure

the crisp edges of real time
injects itself drunken into me

vein and artery
arrow and artistry
my fingers click precise

not trained or systematic
they type inclined to carpal tunnel

syndromes
honing in on old age and raw certainty

and me only worried that my eggs
will never bring themselves to fruition

but life can mark itself on a body
many ways

sperm and life
and being a lesbian is more complicated
than I would ever have envisioned

inside my head
I was coming to America
to laugh

and live a little
leave some of me to giggle
small parts dissolving into cackles
I though I would last longer than this restless devil caressing
inch long bruises across my identity

what the fuck is identity
in the face of all we endure

existence is inane

necessary
and without reason

no logic sticks to the ribcage
of death
and my voice is finding itself
blue
and yellow light breaking new skin all over my solitary bed

my limbs
can rest naked

missing the familiar
but aching less with the hours

thank God/or fate/or luck foe these horrible movies

for this book I am tapping into shape

no matter what you say

assault
survival

almost/almost survival

almost rape

such windows were made to be seen through
tall glass structures
erected upright for efficiency

and me sleeping un the nude
so the cold autumn sun can lick my stomach
my face unfolding to find morning
blinking at me

nothing feels as good
as my own belly
uncontained, my hips, my ass curved and kissed gently by the blanket
we slept under

in Washington Heights
and here

I can smile now
thinking of you

inhale the memory of your beautiful hands
seeking a clarity
elsewhere

and me
searching the bed for the phone
or a pen
or the remote
for one more movie

and me smiling open at the possibilities
opened up again

not so long ago

my hands were happily tied to yours

perfect
your fingers knew me

languid
Sunday mornings

sex and sleeping and the simple rote
of kisses
awakening

smiles
hidden/self-conscious

you were always too conscious of how much this meant

in another life
we will look back

and weep at our innocence
our rash politics

our wild hope against hope

we could have lasted
and did

almost two years
and I can smile at us now

new rings
promised under skies
and rain jackets at 2 a.m.

my feminist self
has never felt so reflected

almost a foot above me
you towered

and I laughed at how small you seemed
wrapped-up in my arms

you made me into a giant
small hands
and feet

I was always amazed
at the height of me

lying next to you the world seemed smaller
than my fears

my hesitation
I wish I would have jumped for you

higher than I did
not out of regret
but because you would have known

that I wanted to

you were beautiful
are beautiful

without clothes
and I challenge the looking glass
here in my bedroom

noon has never been so far
away
rocks the rhythm of a night without tears

willow trees bend stunning
in my imagination
they weep and whisper sweet nothings

nothing can make me
take back how much we loved each other

love each other
even now

a crass warp in our time
synchronized

we could have tested the parameters
of forever

but the edges would not have been
visible

the skies would have been endless
such excess
may have compromised

the way I love you now

rejoice

not in what could have been

but what was
flesh
morning
cafes

love and hope blooming radical in out chests
we nested
each lifetime pocketed

finite
in our hands

forever
was a thing to be trusted

and I giggle now
pleased with the memories fluttering comfortable
against my ribs

Adam can go fuck himself

I wanted Eve- I always want Eve
the apple tempting rose-like against her cheek

the meek shall inherit the earth
but I wanted your flesh

revelled in it human
frail

I found you
against these odds

twice

and now the future
winds itself spring-like against the Fall

winter is almost here
the winds
the leaves breaking colorful piles and piles of potential

next year
is still a possibility

but today is beating urgent
and am committed to living in the now
--