when we perform, it's just coffee shop chicks and white dudes

The anticipation arose as time froze
I stared off the stage with my eyes closed and dove
into the deep cosmos

he patiently gazed at the frayed hair follicles that cicumvented the curves of his face and dotted his jaw's landscape.

as he paced to and fro with an impatient bop he held the crinkled sheet of paper in his wavering hand.

neatly folded to a fourth of its original size, he occasionally froze in his place with abrupt jolts to his body that made it seem as though the air temperature had dropped 70 degrees in a split second.

and in that instant, those same eyes that shielded the world from within, darted across the words calmly scrawled on the page. devoid of divinity...cocked and aimed and sprayed...at a moment's notice.

hollow words without true meaning when taken individually. but the picture they painted collectively was a concise story that wove many strands into one singular theme.

and with that, his pursed lips continued their slow and hushed reiteration of those very same words.

in the bathroom. on the sidewalk. in the truck. on storrw drive. in harvard square. at the atm. in the basement corner spot next to the speaker and behind the bassist. between bites of sweet potatoe fries and appluase for the slam and featured poets.

until it was his turn to take the stage.

and he reluctantly rose with determined hesitation as the emcee announced, "next up on the open mic...POPS"

...and then he froze up on stage and fuqed up his first time trying to perform without reading from a piece of paper. oh well. back to doing some more back pocket poetry. this memorization shT is for the birds.

Hip-Hop, you the love of my life
-The Roots and Common, "Act Too"