words, actions

This flower petal just float­ed over my house.
I told it that flow­ers don’t grow that tall.
I told it that it didn’t make sense.
I told I didn’t un­der­stand it.
I told it that it wasn’t a leaf.
I told it that it hadn’t fall­en from any great height.
I told it that it would fall to the ground eventually.

It just kept floating.

 

For 35 years I’ve worked to keep my med­ical con­di­tion a se­cret and only trust­ed it with a hand­ful of peo­ple so see­ing it writ­ten out

in print in a news pub­li­ca­tion (☚ read here!)

ties a knot in my stom­ach (iron­ic be­cause of the whole be­ing born with­out stom­ach mus­cles thing). Tech­ni­cal­ly I have been “dis­abled” my whole life ac­cord­ing to med­ical standards.

Right now that knot is dif­fer­ent. Right now it isn’t caused from fear. It is an over­whelm­ing hope that all the lit­tle ba­bies spend­ing to­day in a hos­pi­tal hooked up to ma­chines liv­ing through hell have hope that it gets bet­ter. That the doc­tors aren’t al­ways right. And that a di­ag­no­sis is not a death sentence.

When peo­ple ask how I live such a nor­mal life … prayer and un­con­di­tion­al­i­ty. If you know my par­ents then you know. If you have ever felt my love then you know my par­ents. They taught me what Zero For­bid­den Goals meant in hos­pi­tal rooms and hock­ey rinks long be­fore any­one heard my po­et­ry. The traits that make me a pas­sion­ate artist and an em­pa­thet­ic leader are traits I learned from my family.

As I write this we are wait­ing for the of­fi­cial re­sults of the Sacra­men­to Poet Lau­re­ate fi­nals and I want to show­er an ocean of praise on my ‘com­pe­ti­tion’ Patrice Hill. Also known as Mama P to a bunch of kids who call me Un­cle Dru and a huge in­spi­ra­tion in my own work. Fam­i­ly. This whole process wouldn’t have been the same with­out hav­ing my sis­ter there to make this his­to­ry with. Re­gard­less of who wins, to­geth­er we chal­lenged an old sys­tem and forced a new fram­ing that will be left as a lega­cy for young writ­ers for gen­er­a­tions to come. She is tru­ly a su­per­hero and a gift to this city. If you don’t know about Sacra­men­to Area Youth Speaks please go check it out and sup­port the in­cred­i­ble work they do.

Thank you to every­one who lis­tens and sup­ports and votes and en­cour­ages on the hard days. Award nom­i­na­tions and ar­ti­cles are re­al­ly nice phys­i­cal re­minders of be­ing seen by your peers and the com­mu­ni­ties we serve but they are not the rea­son we do this work. I have not got­ten here alone. I built on the shoul­ders of gi­ants with help from the gods them­selves. In all of you.

What we do here is magic.
The voice of the peo­ple is sacred.
The mu­sic nev­er lies.
Even when you lie to it.

Thanks to Liv Mon­a­han, Ed­i­tor-at-Large, for the words. All ways al­ways love.

 

 

( pause here for a second )

 

 

This just in:

So. Um. You guys …………………………………… we did it. 😭🙏🔮❤️

I love you.
Thank you.

#Ze­ro­For­bid­den­Goals

 

 

( pause here for an­oth­er second )

 

 

https://youtu.be/2U1E-CgIlUE

The fam pre­scribed a ‘Thank Me’ post be­fore the big gushy ‘Thank You’ post be­cause if ima preach self love then I need to prac­tice it too.

My first poem was a sui­cide note so good I de­cid­ed against the attempt.

I wrote on what they told me was a deathbed.
I wrote when teach­ers said I’d nev­er amount to anything.
I wrote when I was homeless.
I wrote eu­lo­gies when my friends died.
I still write when I miss them.
I wrote my way through rehab.
I nev­er stopped writing.
I wrote a whole life­time of trau­mas out of me.
I was kicked out of places for “not con­sid­er­ing my con­tent” when I just need­ed a place to tell my story.
I kept writing.
And I made space for every­one else to write.
I fought for the voic­es of po­ets I will nev­er know out of love for works that haven’t been cre­at­ed yet.
I have been threat­ened with ar­rest for in­cit­ing po­et­ry in this city.
I nev­er stopped writing.
I made every sac­ri­fice asked of me and nev­er ex­pect­ed any­thing in re­turn but the love I was will­ing to put in.

:: stands on chair ::

I want to thank me for work­ing so tire­less­ly all these years to be in­no­v­a­tive and au­then­tic in hon­or­ing this craft, lov­ing so hard and show­ing up so big for the peo­ple, and for just grow­ing up to be the dopest per­son I know.

If you see me out ever again in life just know we celebratin’.

Dreams come true y’all.

The holi­est shit.

 

—an­dru defeye

Flom­mist An­dru De­f­eye is the Guer­ril­la Poet Lau­re­ate of Sacra­men­to. Copy­right © 2020 An­dru Defeye.

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