I wasn't familiar with slam poetry until last year when my friend introduced me. This friend of mine has a great reading voice and wound up winning a poetry recitation contest with this poem. If you like this style, you should check out other authors such as Taylor Mali or Gerald Jackson. Try writing your own! (I wrote one about sweater vests that I'll post soon)
Dear Stranger,
if you hear this and think it could be about you, please don’t stop listening. I am homeward bound and if I have found you then it must have been meant to be. Take each word that is more than silence and place it inside parentheses.
You’ll know what to do soon enough.
Dear Stranger,
I used to be told by the boy that was in love with me that I had the talent to keep him on the phone for three hours longer than he’d planned to be. It wasn’t until I would hang up that I would realize it wasn’t talent, but complete fascination of the sounds of our voices intertwining between two states
and the belief that we were closer than we were that kept us up all night.
He and I were the kind of bad dreams worth having. Unforgettable with the desire to find out how it would have ended if we hadn’t woken up when we did - I’m not saying I’m still in love with him.
I just don’t believe I would be able to stop myself if I found him all over again.
Dear Stranger,
we were pipelines fumbling chances of locked eyes six inches away from all that we could breathe and I knew I liked it too much because I couldn’t pull my face out of a smile for two weeks. I keep seeing you in the faces of boys who look nothing like you when I’m riding subways, but it’s been worth it every time for the eighth of a second roller coaster ride my heart gets to go on. It’s like a chance meeting with Disney World and I don’t even care that the palm trees are bare this time of year in Boston. I keep having to remind myself that we’re not in love yet, but I’m pulling for the fact that it could, should, might, has to happen so you’ll know my promises are worn on my hands like lifelines.
Permanent.
Pulled out of the sky, I made you into a constellation that spelled “take” so that every girl that laughed at your jokes would know that you laughed at my jokes and I don’t want the best. I just need what can pull me out of the worst so that we can exist as storm clouds on dry summer nights.
Furious.
Dear Stranger,
I’ve been crossing out the word “sorry” from every dictionary that I could find since the age of ten and I’m not about to stop because I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Piece me together with patches of three hour timeouts and the three minutes that elapsed before we met. I’ll keep breathing for you, even when you don’t want me to.
Dear Stranger,
Daylight.
We haven’t met yet.
When we do, our smiles will be so close we’ll believe they’re from the same light source.
And that’s the way I like it.
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