Andrea Gibson – Love Me to Life [Video]

By Button Poetry

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Andrea Gibson, performing in Longmont, CO.
Instrumental music by Lara Ruggles: https://www.sharkkheartt.com/

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We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry’s audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.

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Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:02
i got sick in 2003 and as much as i
0:05
tried illness was one relationship i
0:08
could never manage to leave in spite of
0:10
seeing every doctor in colorado i could
0:12
not divorce my body from its pain in
0:15
2010 i woke up in a scream that lasted
0:18
eight months a charlie horse bucking
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through my blood i didn’t believe i
0:21
could live through it for half an hour
0:23
then half a year passed and it was still
0:26
nowhere close to tamed i struggled to
0:28
walk from my bed to the bathroom left my
0:31
house for nothing but my shows that i
0:33
didn’t just cancel what would have been
0:35
healthy to cancel was a side effect of
0:37
both shame and having been raised
0:39
proudly working class by a father who
0:41
hated having a heart attack less than he
0:44
hated having to call in sick because of
0:46
it to make it through my tour i wore an
0:48
eight-year-old’s pink sequined dance
0:50
leotard hidden beneath my clothes for
0:53
every reading a makeshift compression
0:55
suit to ease the pain bought at a dance
0:57
store beside a venue on a night i knew
1:00
it would be as easy for me to stand up
1:02
on stage for 60 minutes as it would be
1:04
for me to win the olympics
1:06
every week a new doctor would ask my
1:09
symptoms i’d always answer my blood
1:12
feels like crushed glass i had no other
1:15
way to explain it they had no idea what
1:17
to do
1:18
once during a layover in chicago my legs
1:21
at that point atrophied to toothpicks it
1:23
took me 90 minutes to walk from one gate
1:26
to the next by the time i boarded i felt
1:28
so close to dead i was certain the plane
1:30
would be my casket so right before
1:32
takeoff i lost it wailing like an
1:35
ambulance in the isle of united 685 into
1:37
the plane stopped on the runway and
1:39
turned around to usher me into the hands
1:41
of medics needless to say it wasn’t the
1:44
sexiest moment of my life though i do
1:46
believe those flight attendants still
1:48
dream about me i guarantee it’s not
1:50
because they think i’m freaky in a good
1:52
way
1:53
some months later i finally got
1:55
diagnosed with chronic lyme disease
1:57
started a pantry of meds and began
1:59
improving but when i hit a roadblock in
2:01
my healing i began a weekly treatment
2:03
where essentially they’d take out my
2:05
blood clean it and put it back in during
2:08
my first appointment i almost vomited
2:11
seeing that my blood was the color of
2:13
tar and a similar texture the doctor
2:15
said it was common with the disease but
2:17
it gave me the willies watching
2:19
something come out of my veins that
2:20
looked like it had come from a gutter
2:23
one week noticing my blood had worsened
2:25
after i’d gotten in an argument with a
2:27
friend i became obsessed with what i
2:30
might be able to do on my own to turn my
2:32
blood red before every weekly
2:34
appointment i’d experiment what happens
2:36
to the color when i meditate what
2:38
happens when i do yoga what happens if i
2:40
put nothing in my body but seaweed
2:42
dandelion leaves and juice kale what
2:44
happens if i bathe in salted crystals
2:46
while chanting in my root chakra while
2:48
breathing sage into the lungs of a cloud
2:50
shaped like mother mary admitting some
2:52
sexy devil swallowed her holy cherry
2:55
some
2:56
and my experiments actually helped
2:57
brighten my blood a bit but not so much
2:59
that i wasn’t losing faith and sunk by
3:01
despair i spent an entire long weekend
3:04
doing nothing but drinking and
3:07
mostly a woman i’d adored for
3:10
years but had only recently found the
3:12
courage to ask out or ask in since i
3:15
could still rarely go out
3:17
she stayed with me for three days and i
3:20
don’t remember a minute i didn’t feel
3:21
like a country farm boy getting
3:23
gratefully ruined in the bed of his
3:25
daddy’s truck my body a graffiti
3:27
confession booth turned inside out for
3:29
that woman’s truth at one point a pig
3:32
walked over from the neighbor’s field
3:33
pressed his snout to the door and fogged
3:35
up the glass watching us get dirty on a
3:37
bean bag on the living room floor we
3:39
stopped of course as soon as we saw the
3:42
pig shooed the kinky angel back home and
3:44
kept going walking into my appointment
3:47
on monday morning i was so terrified of
3:50
the dark i knew they’d find inside me i
3:52
slammed my eyes shut when the doctor
3:54
slid the needle into my arm they were
3:56
still shut when he belted jesus christ
3:59
i opened my eyes
4:01
and my blood was so bright it was the
4:03
color of pomegranate seeds of wild
4:05
strawberries of ladybugs in love it was
4:08
the color of falling autumn maple leafs
4:10
a part of the sunset you cannot believe
4:12
is real my blood was the color of the
4:15
lipstick she left on my collarbone the
4:17
color of her fingernails dug into my
4:19
hips the color of my blushing when she
4:22
told me to feel her up and i
4:24
accidentally started unbuttoning her
4:26
pants y’all i did not have a clue how i
4:28
managed to live this many years without
4:30
knowing feel me up means touch my boobs
4:32
but i know it now i know it now
4:35
just like i know my blood is red when
4:38
it’s red at least partially because of
4:40
love because of what holds me to the
4:43
light what touches me to the core would
4:45
shine me like a ruby and wore me around
4:48
her neck you can die
4:50
from a broken heart
4:51
i’ve watched it happen
4:53
i’ve watched someone’s body follow a
4:55
loved one’s body to the other side it
4:58
was the hardest thing i ever witnessed
5:00
in my life but it was the softest two
5:04
one heart stopping to tell another heart
5:07
i’m coming with you
5:09
you can die from a broken heart
5:12
but the opposite
5:14
the opposite is also true
5:23
thank you

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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