Akeemjamal Rollins – Tonight [Video]

By Button Poetry

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Akeemjamal Rollins, performing at Icehouse in Minneapolis, MN.

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Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:01
tonight I am overwhelmed with myself and
0:04
I don’t have enough alcohol or enough
0:07
reasons to say no to my own hands
0:10
midnight is pregnant with nine o’clock
0:13
and I am alone and crying watching gay
0:15
men love each other and I am bewildered
0:17
how I am NOT a part of that all I want
0:21
is friends and love and everything
0:23
kindergarten makes you feel entitled to
0:26
I am a social disease high of self-pity
0:30
first-world tonight God is a pissed-off
0:33
demon biting angels like chewing gum I
0:35
break the window sill and marvel at my
0:37
strength and I wonder did I get here
0:41
how often has death come from me dressed
0:45
in my best friend’s faces or a lover’s
0:47
nakedness one my mother while pregnant
0:51
with me is almost shot in a drive-by the
0:53
umbilical cord plus against me with the
0:56
recycled soul of a hanged man and I am
0:58
born blue and not breathing nine months
1:01
of chewing Cleveland factory air and
1:03
lake effect winter later my lungs pick
1:05
packed their bags with empty and quit
1:07
asthma moves in and the lungs are
1:10
missing for three days until the
1:11
hospital’s oxygen offers them a higher
1:13
salary I almost fall off the balcony I
1:16
am bit near the kidney by the dog my
1:19
grandmother dies and I wear grief for
1:21
the first time I am hit by a car on
1:23
Easter I fail at suicide I’m 12
1:27
years old and I know how to do it right
1:28
this time
1:29
my brakes go out on the highway even
1:32
though my car had a mouthful of suicidal
1:34
people I curve so the tree punches eight
1:36
inches through the door I walk away with
1:39
two small scratches and a $475 traffic
1:42
ticket tonight I’m a stand-up comedian
1:45
for an angry God and I can’t get him to
1:47
smile tonight the stars are swollen
1:49
because moons are abusive girlfriends
1:52
and planets our fathers that ignore us
1:54
so hard we spin around them our whole
1:56
lives trying to eclipse ourselves the
1:59
crickets are having an orgy in my green
2:01
green grass all the people I love in a
2:04
city I hate are Doggett Lee laughing
2:06
without me tonight the bars are full of
2:08
wire armed men and women with spaghetti
2:11
noodle hair my mother is texting me
2:13
afraid I’m on
2:14
sir because I have finally done what she
2:17
never had the courage to do i inherit
2:19
her to her skin and her lust for death
2:21
for fire escapes at every window for
2:24
butterflies bathed in shadows suit
2:26
tonight I shower in fetal position and
2:28
convinced my tears they came out the
2:30
faucet tonight I am my father but not
2:33
his child tonight alcohol is a 24 ounce
2:36
bottle of lonely black boy wrestling
2:38
headlong on a borrowed couch the
2:41
antidepressant bottle is full of pills
2:43
shaped like tomorrow tonight I am
2:45
overwhelmed with myself and I only want
2:48
to have sex so I have a reason to hurt
2:50
someone until they call it pleasure
2:52
so they scream my name so I can remember
2:54
it I am sweating and undiagnosed and an
2:57
outcast depression is the abuse of God
3:00
that is everywhere and knows everything
3:02
about you and uses your voice to beat
3:04
you bloody until you mind to your mind
3:07
is a firework in the afternoon allowed
3:10
to Sparkle that nobody sees until you
3:12
are rabid and foaming at the mouth until
3:15
you rip at your body shame and eat
3:18
yourself thin and fat again until fat
3:21
means something besides invisible and
3:23
gay slang until I am the last of my
3:26
siblings at the bottom of the milk
3:27
carton until poetry is a dirty washcloth
3:29
and my emptied mine is now clean
3:31
depression can make the dinner for one
3:34
have the taste of a last meal jesus wept
3:38
so did Judas none of the Apostles
3:42
comforted either what good is loving
3:45
people they don’t help you in your
3:46
obvious time of need where you’ve been
3:49
over backwards to show your love to them
3:52
and swallow whole bottles of other
3:54
people’s problems and keep it down
3:56
despite the purging urge slouching and
3:58
the brains bedroom depression can so
4:00
easily seduce their love for you to ash
4:03
tray litter a bug on the face of time I
4:08
am Sodom and Gomorrah
4:10
everyone I love has run away from me
4:13
depression is cloaked in omnipotence I
4:16
drink the drink the fire with a rim of
4:20
no salt because nobody turned around to
4:24
watch me burn
4:25
you
4:26
[Applause]

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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