Sara Lessmann – A Death in the Family [Video]

By Button Poetry

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Sara Lessmann, performing at WoWPS 2020 in Dallas, TX.

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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.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:02
i’m lost
0:03
in a lake of stars chasing the place
0:06
where your frame remains
0:08
standing where your name hangs in
0:11
suspended expectation
0:13
of a life lived longer than your last
0:15
exhalation
0:17
when aunt paulette laughed as michael
0:19
cut your hair off and in patterns
0:21
as magic as your laughter you signed his
0:23
skin in marker
0:24
when no one imagined your body laid down
0:27
on satin
0:28
years shrunk to hours face framed by
0:31
flowers
0:32
in that glossy brown casket and so i
0:35
dismantle the photo albums of family
0:37
events but no answer satisfies why you
0:40
took your own life then because
0:41
holiday pictures are given quick fixes
0:44
turning relative ways to nostalgic
0:46
depictions
0:47
and memories into keepsakes that lack
0:49
facts from present understanding because
0:52
memories are as relative as family is
0:54
relating
0:55
i suppose it’s less about needing to
0:58
know
0:58
in something more unspoken so here i go
1:02
dear cousin more than dna
1:05
and family trees we shared thoughts of
1:07
suicide at age 14.
1:10
i want to skip to the scene where i ask
1:11
you not to do it you listen to me and we
1:14
meet up yearly recalling our memories
1:16
like poetry but this isn’t some
1:17
shakespearean trope
1:19
there are no trophies for distant family
1:21
who opt for political correctness to
1:23
avoid the discomfort
1:24
of bluntness despite knowing their
1:26
cousin is hopeless like a fox with
1:28
locked jaw unable to chew i was
1:29
tongue-tied and trotted around the issue
1:31
pretending things were beautiful instead
1:33
of talking to you about the taboo
1:35
and when the word suicide sits in your
1:37
mind you’re unable to distinguish the
1:39
truth
1:40
from dark thinking i know because i’ve
1:41
seen my own life turn to sinking
1:44
if i had asked you to just speak it
1:46
would you have been able to see it there
1:48
are pieces of life worth living
1:50
and that we see people and things not as
1:52
they are but proof
1:54
for the truth we believe even if it’s a
1:56
lie we allow
1:57
i wish i had asked about you more and
1:59
made the trip to see you and said
2:01
something to change your mind and that i
2:03
didn’t let the distance between our
2:04
families define us
2:05
i wish i had made suggestions for things
2:07
to try like god can take the piss so you
2:10
can shout at him
2:11
like chilling on benches and boring
2:13
like playing tic-tac-toe and writing
2:15
poems or making up words with your
2:17
sister in toe
2:18
or the arms of your mother like
2:22
rolling around in the snow you wouldn’t
2:24
even have to do it excitedly
2:25
you could do it half-heartedly like
2:26
those depressed people you see in movies
2:28
who turn their lives around somehow
2:30
and you might ask me if all this stuff
2:32
is really better than dying and i would
2:34
tell you i don’t know
2:36
but i do know there’s hope because i’ve
2:38
shook its hand
2:39
with my heart i’ve shook its hand with
2:40
my throat or it shook me
2:42
lifeless red made to beating and
2:44
cylinder made to swallow so please
2:46
just walk around the block or count the
2:48
hair on your dog’s coat or laundry in
2:50
out
2:50
another load or fluff your pillow over
2:52
and over again until it becomes the
2:54
cloud
2:54
or go to the park and make daisy chains
2:56
or listen to music so loud the noise
2:58
replaces your thoughts
2:59
or oiling your bike chain anything else
3:02
until that option
3:03
is last but the truth is
3:06
biting time is only part of it it takes
3:09
a village to treat
3:10
mental illness
3:22
you

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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