poetry slam

I just got back from my very first poetry slam event (as an audience member) and it was AWESOME. It is oh so frustrating to be sitting in that audience listening to these people pour out their thoughts and souls and have my own poetic thoughts run through my head and to get back here, to my welcoming and familiar keyboard, and to forget each of the things I didn't want to.

shelby, who wishes she had a guitar onstage with her when she stands there, I want to tell you how much I used to wish that too. I still do I suppose, but now in a whole new starting from scratch sorta way. I can sing to a crowd, I can sing to a stadium, but playing guitar and singing the words that I wrote is what scares me senseless. Now there are three levels of vulnerability, my voice, my fumbling fingers and my weighty heart. I don't give myself enough credit, because you see, I have four peely fingertips to show you that I am a guitar player, but I have next to zero guts to show you that I am a guitar player. That is why I'm starting from scratch. Now, my singing and my playing are sewn together, they are one system, one organ, one pulsating and pushing urge to create a sound that maybe maybe someone will understand. I want to be heard, but the guitar is not quite enough to hide behind, instead it sits on my lap like a Great Dane, you want it there because you care for it, but it just a little uncomfortable. I want to have my music heard and appreciated from my own throat and hands, but it turns out I am afraid of both failure and praise. I don't want to trip over the music that I know I know, but I'm afraid of the feeling of hearing someone say "good job, that was great, I didn't realize you..." Didn't realize I what? Had stories to tell? Had words to spill? Had fingers that could hold little strings on a guitar tight enough to make them vibrate in just the right way to create one of the most beautiful sounds I know? Sometimes I forget too.