Windows

(Old College Art and Poetry. This was the closing for the UCSC Women’s Ensemble Theatre (WET) performance in 1996. That was one of the most amazing things I ever did. 60 Grrls together doing performance art. If I could, I would put every piece we did there actually. It really kicked ass. The Vigina Monologues? Pleeeze, it bored to me tears. We really sad something. I was real proud to be the closing, just me on stage with one spot light. I could see people crying in the audience, it was intense to make people feel so strongly.)

Windows

Four blue florescent walls erected around me,
Enclosing my voice within
Rendering me mute

I was silence when my first boyfriend hit me
Silence when he locked me in his room
Silence when he threw me down the stairs of a train station
Silence when he strangled me until I passed out

Cowering underneath a hooded wool jacket,
I remained buttoned up, under thermals.
In the corner of the class room,
The back of the bus
In politics

Then a woman, walked into the corridor of our apartment
With a black eye, and bruises around her neck,
She hid from me when I reached out
She looked at me voiceless
and

I began screaming
I kept on shouting
I started speaking
from the back of the world

Because she was mute
As if her boyfriend’s
Hands where still freezing her vocal cords

And mine were free…