 I'm kind of nervous because these poems are kind of short and I used to do slam before so I'm only used to like really hype like audiences and really hype like it's like poetry has to be turned or if not I'm like I'm bored I want to go home. But you know I'm trying to grow up and this project was really fun and I think it bridged some of the stuff that I've always been interested with poetry which is first of all documentation and I think the first time I went to an archive I was in I was I was interested like how they could document undocumented people if you can't like have particular information in the archives that will like you know wrap people out whatever depending on what people are going through and you know assuming that someone's undocumented also might already have other issues with the police so I guess that being said I went into the archives thinking about that but this time it was a little different because the folder I was looking at was the black lesbian news letters and it was just one box so I just focused on that one box and the poetry of Teddy Matthews ring and what I really loved about that poetry and I think that's what the three pieces that I'm gonna read were bouncing off was like just myth-making and trying to imagine a body that doesn't just survive in the archives past everything that is it been it's been through but that can exist in a in poetry so that you can also imagine it not just in the archives but I'm like whatever it may be that my poetry won't make it to the archives but wherever I speak or share poetry I want it to be archivable in the sense that I want it to be myth-making okay that being said it's actually four short poems and they kind of go in together and I sort of split them up again because at first they were sort of a braid but then I was like I have them literally a little bit schizophrenic I'm like there's like 30 different voices I need to split these poems up into four so the first poem is called Orien making on the stoop and if you feel anything I'm saying you can clap say like do not be silent like it doesn't have I don't like it has to be awkward I really like want there to be a different interaction when people are speaking their art like if I'm sharing something really vulnerable you guys can like speak back to me so I don't feel how long come to all okay Orien making on the stoop some say it was a snake coughed her up milkless left her a rusting uterus crows nibbling the last of her placenta spider across she is a rainfall she is a rainfall away from telling on you she's got a chip tooth and a fist full of seeds well my titty told me and she knows her that I got Bessina found her in a chili coffin pepper filled with clam tells tried to pick her up but you know she was all salt and shiver man had to be the ocean if you ask me sick as we've made it probably shook her off like a bad cold she's got to be somebody's daughter I bet she was just a young thing gripped into romance wanting you know eyes rolling back the sting the foam the fish tails to be somebody's mermaid plastic clay whatever wanting to be blanket river someone's warm tea girl be knife map tent leather boots wake up sandy and hungry for your life I'm thirsty okay this second poem is called Orien making outside the bodega on Linux and I think some of the titles in the pieces are supposed to be geographical to where I grew up in Boston because part of the poems that I was looking at and part of what that writer was doing was that it was based in the south so all of the poetry and the poems that came in her collection was really based on like her geographical area so this was called Ian making outside of what they got learning switches this what they got I went to my whole life until I moved to California so this is basic this was me imagining like if I was to stand in a stoop and like reintroduce myself to every time like I was there and someone was really annoying me or like I was like trying to hide my breast cuz I'm like I'm uncomfortable but like I have to go through that that building all the time because my mom is like you have to go do this and I'm like I don't want to bring my queer and black guys downstairs right now so this is like me trying to imagine if I had a comeback like to that which I usually never did Orien making outside the bodega on Linux I is bitter syrup boiled embers molasses thick I take work I want more I take time oils and lotions and all of your money I'm bad for you I go straight to the heart be bad for the blood but I'm all your curses lifted returning to myself and you will feed me as I is and you will bring me black coffee no sugar on Monday's black eggs over mounds of black beans what I mean when I say go sharpen your oyster knife I mean tell them run tell them they much space between them in this sharp tongue it's cut through it cuts through I mean you are no one's crime scene no one's ghost toss wandering empty handed I mean the last thing I thought I would do was love again I brought her this battered body and she praised it every time a bark back when I say go sharpen your oyster knife I mean I need you to shake the earth with those thighs I mean cut I mean cut deep they will not forget a sharp black hand but if they do least they'll remember the knife okay and then this is the last one it's called I know why sunflower bows and this is really depressing too this is like I was walking by you know like towards the end of the summer or at least in the east coast I don't know for the same thing here but all the sunflowers just start to die and it just looks really depressing but I'm really sad so I get really happy when I see that I'm just like oh my god they're dead like it's okay so I was like I wonder like what else could a sunflower do or how else I could imagine what a sunflower is doing when it's like following the sun or what plants are doing when they're following the sun I know why the sunflower bows I got tired of following the sun living like no fire in my belly no instinct in my gut tired of bending my neck tired of bending my neck cracked praising a fire god who wakes sure of its light but afraid of mine tired and convinced that light is a thing I could follow but not find search or live in listen I ain't no bud no newborn no toddler flower I've been here I stand fixed my direction clear my existence brilliant I bow because I found the sun in me and this this is not fear it's not obedience this is prayer thank you