Rubi Morgan – Therapist [Video]

By Button Poetry

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Rubi Morgan, performing at WoWPS 2020 in Dallas, TX.

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Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:02
from her elbow to her wrist
0:05
she showed me where she carved maps said
0:07
she used a compass made of razor blades
0:10
to find herself let the scars
0:12
cover her arms like coordinates she said
0:15
she could trace them back to the day we
0:16
first met
0:18
when you’re a therapist you go to work
0:21
with a cape
0:22
and a mask meet the hundred or so souls
0:24
who are looking for a superhero to save
0:26
them
0:27
give you an arm full of problems and ask
0:29
if you can change them
0:30
lay the coldest words the world has ever
0:32
told them at your feet
0:34
and hope you can rearrange them to say
0:37
something else
0:39
my cape is made of
0:42
motivational words and hopeful
0:44
sentiments most days my superpower is
0:46
knowing what you want to hear and making
0:48
you say it yourself i can talk
0:50
the gun out of your hand faster than its
0:52
speeding bullet untangle the web of lies
0:55
you tell yourself to feel better
0:57
my super human strength is doing this
0:59
three more times before the day ends but
1:01
sometimes i wonder
1:03
if 45 minutes is long enough to convince
1:06
you that i can fly
1:09
one day she asks me miss
1:12
why do i even bother life has led me
1:15
down the wrong path
1:16
again and again miss i am so tired of
1:19
feeling
1:20
lost miss you have no idea what it feels
1:24
like
1:26
and i want to tell her that she’s wrong
1:29
compare her forearm to my left thigh
1:31
show her where i once sketched my own
1:33
reflection just to remember what my
1:35
smile looked like
1:37
how the number of lines i cut was
1:39
relative to the number of times i failed
1:41
to save myself that day when you’re a
1:43
therapist
1:44
you go you do not have the luxury of a
1:47
bad day
1:49
i wear a mask of motivational words and
1:52
hopeful sentiments
1:53
on these days my biggest weakness is
1:56
knowing what i’m supposed to say and not
1:57
believing a word of it
1:59
it’s pretending that i know how to fly
2:01
when it took me two hours to get out of
2:03
bed this morning when she
2:05
asks me miss why do i even bother
2:10
i want to tell her that i’m a therapist
2:12
not a mortician i do not know how to
2:15
make a dead thing pretty
2:16
again but if you need help remembering
2:19
why you wanted to live in the first
2:21
place i’m here
2:23
i’m here to show you that everything can
2:25
be survived unless you let it kill you
2:28
razor blades
2:29
do not change your trauma you cannot
2:31
shortcut your way past the battle scenes
2:34
but if you need help reminding yourself
2:37
that you’re strong enough to endure it
2:39
i have all the tools you will need here
2:42
take my cape it will help you fly
2:45
through your storms make you believe
2:46
that you will live to be a hero in
2:48
someone else’s story
2:50
one day and if you ever need to
2:52
camouflage the human in you
2:54
you can wear my mask put it on when you
2:57
feel like crying
2:59
smiling can be its own superpower but
3:02
so can living
3:05
[Applause]

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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