Yelling Fire — Performance Poetry by Mecca [Button Poetry Video]

By Button Poetry

Transcript provided by YouTube. Please excuse any discrepancies from the original performance. 

My father warned me to yell “fire” if I was ever in danger instead of yelling for help. He believed that people tend to respond more urgently to burning buildings than to burning women. But now, as I reflect on my life, I realize I have countless stories of how I never used that advice. Instead, I built walls around myself, walls that are now in need of repair. My soul feels like a fragile glass window, bursting with emotions.

There were times when I should have yelled “fire,” but I couldn’t. Wayne used my vulnerability against me, and I felt silenced. I couldn’t cry for help when Josh violated me, taking advantage of my body. I couldn’t yell “fire” when my father’s stepkids threatened me with a kitchen stove that my mother dared them not to touch. Instead, I became a metaphorical fire, hoping to burn away my body and escape like a smoke signal into the sky. But they all just gathered around my blaze, warming themselves, seemingly unaware of the pain I was experiencing.

It’s challenging to yell “fire” when the fire itself needs oxygen to survive, just like rape culture suffocates its victims. But you all treat it like a cliché, something you’ve heard of or seen before. Have you ever encountered a woman scarred and scorched like a dragon, ready to breathe flames? You sought fire and brimstone, and I became a burning city for so long, warning you not to look back at me.

I’m no longer just a melting metal. I am a pillar of smoke, warning you that my words hold power. I am not just speaking up for myself; I am screaming for all the girls who were set on fire after me. This is not how I wanted to be a trailblazer, and I apologize for being afraid to shine brightly. I wish my father had told me about the people who started the fires, the ones whose fingerprints remain as ash.

How to be a voiceless victim is to be like a match burned down to the fingertips, and how to be a voiceless ally is to have kerosene-filled firecrackers exploding in your face. The glow you see from us, the victims and allies, is not beautiful; it’s the reflection of the volcano within us. When we speak, we must coat everything and everyone, even ourselves, in the magma of our truth.

So, when you see the pyre,

the pile of our bodies rolling towards you like hellfire, y

ou better speak up,

you better cry,

you better yell.

[Applause]

—

This post was previously published on YouTube.

—

Become a Member of Button Poetry for exclusive perks and videos: https://bit.ly/ButtonMember
Carlynn Newhouse, performing at the 2022 Womxn of the World Poetry Slam in Baltimore, MD.

About Button:

Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.

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.

***

You might also like these from The Good Men Project:

.. In Modern Relationships, We Cheat Every Single Day

Compliments Men Would Love to Hear More Often

.10 Things Good Men Should Never Do in a Relationship

It’s Not Just Sex That He is Longing For. It’s This

—

Photo credit: iStock