Soothing the Pain of the Past Through Spoken Word | Short Film Showcase

Que rico! Is it real? Seems like every day I would have some beautiful earrings with diamonds in it that would hit my songs on the radio. All the little girls would be screaming, "Aah!" Then I'd shake their hands, and a little girl would pass out. "Oh my gosh!" I got this. My family would be proud of me. Did she tell me that's not what you bother? You don't know we're bigger if you're not gonna be waiting for my big girl to another bigger punch.

Let me know that I’m Michael, but it's better; it's not as vengeful. So now, just leave the paper; this is your best. We just want to be able to, today. I told you our black spiders cheetah. I'm not wearing a long sleeve; well, you just look. Oh no, that's okay! Forget that, I'll see you guys in ninety percent.

Right, this is what's below the surface. These are the things that people don't see when they look at it: your emotions, your insecurities. Alright, so that means that all of this right here, no, this is great, but you're right, it's nothing. So what we're gonna focus on is we're gonna focus on all of these things right here, 'cause this, this is where the meat of who you are is. And I don't care about the sauce, I don't care about the size; I care about the move. Everybody's clear, boy!

Alright, everybody has a story based on a lot of times what other people tell. The force is based on that ten percent of the iceberg. Right? And this class is gonna be constructing that other ninety percent through our words, through our stories. Right? So we're gonna do a poem first. This is my story of where I'm from and who and what made me who I am.

Coo coo! I learned the auto hustle from my mother; learned how to bear these knuckles from my father. So I’m the daughter of a fighter and a survivor. But you can't be either unless you're both. So every time I open up my mouth, it's a testament.

I don't know how you live, y'all, but in my life, Devon is everything. Did I hold my relevance in my throat? On cold days, I hold hope in the pocket of my favorite coat. I got three generations of strong black living in my backbone, to take a pity and turn it into a dollar and make it feed for a week at a time.

I learned to order grind from my mother; learned how to fight for what was mine from my father. So for me, it will always be good, better, and best. I can never let it rest. They chopped off my right; I'ma go hard with my left. I’ll ball my last breath 'cause I was birthed with a speaker box pumping in my chest.

I was bred to be a warrior, born to be a renegade. When they see me, people say, "Oh, she's fast, she's ugly!" They would take my stuff, throw it in the trash, spit on my stuff. When they break it, I got hit in the back of the head with a VCR tape. My head was bleeding. Everybody would laugh; really, I thought that nobody liked me.

Yes, what was the name of it? Whitney Houston? The name of your poem is Whitney Houston? It's about Whitney Houston? No one? Oh, you wrote a poem about her videos?

Okay, no. Have you written any personal poems lately? Three? Much is Googling pools? No, I chuckle. Go get your book, cycle, see what you wrote about Whitney Houston drowning. What's the analyzing bodies?

The poetry that I am doing now is helping me so much to get past what I went through. Fear is real. It doesn't matter how big you are; it doesn't matter how much money you make; it doesn't matter if you're a female or a male. You will tell us the story of this moment that you were afraid.

"I can't do it!"

Yeah, you can! Just can't! I promise you, you can!

"Why can't you?"

Alright, so one of the reasons why we do this is because on the other side of poems are often healing. If you have to cry to get through with that, that's good! That means that you're crying it all out.

Tell me, when I started. Even if you decide to tell me, when I started, I was still in elementary school, and I got raped by my next buddy. Offensive! Powerful! I thought that nobody would want to talk to me, nobody would want to help me.

That's important! Tell me this. I really never thought that I would be able to see the age 18 or be here until 2014. I never thought that I would make it, but I have enough! So happy that I'm here! Oh, I'm just so happy that I'm here! Ever since I got here to Poetic Justice, it has what the actual memo desk, other way from the former burger.

Your voice is one instrument in the beat! Okay, yes, we're not in school right now; okay, we're in a class that spoke awarded hip-hop. So you gotta be willing to participate and go there. Leave behind all the "I'm wonder what people think" anymore, right? And just go write!

Alright, so, um, I’ma start with a la la. Ever since I got into a different environment, everything changed! That very first day of me riding in Poetic Justice, I mean, in front of the class, I was shaking and I was here. But something just pushed me and just told me to just go ahead and just read it.

When I said it, I felt so much relief off of my shoulders. It was a big, huge step for me. Basically, when I'm in Poetic Justice, I feel happy, I feel free. I just feel like an Asian, like regular rotation. You, you, you!