so i edited my part,
tell me what you think...

Kerrolita: He fell from the swing set

Crippled down in pain
He nominates emotion
Kneeling to comfort my little brother’s face
Eyes woven together like cloth
I press hard on his bleeding wounds
Whisper into his little ear not to cry
He cant cry, he can’t cry
(Don’t cry, don’t cry)

Miles: There are no tears

Kerri: I watch his pupils dilate
As red fear oozes out of his lidless sockets
I was holding him when they came for me
Arms frozen around his shrinking frame
They had to break both shoulder blades to unhinge me from him
Cut my fingers from his face
Make me fiber

Miles: There is no embracing

NEW REPUBLIC....FINISHED?

Meg: Mill me down
Alyssa: Make me fiber
Kerri: Make me flour

Miles:
Welcome citizens of the New Republic
We have come here on the plane of a new horizon
Rising higher in our humanity
We live in victory now.
We have abolished crime.
We have rid ourselves of war.
We have become a powerful, functioning machine,
And now we can live free.
We are free.
In the rise of the New Republic.

Meg: Will they remember
Mill me down

Alyssa: Mine was smiling
It had been years since I remembered to do so
Was a little rusty in my rendering
I crowbar bent my mouth into a pale pink half moon
Remembered what it felt like to be weightless
Before all of this happened
*before them

Meg: We're all just trying to find the sun again

Alyssa: And that’s when they came for me
With their hollow eyes and metal faces
They saw my lips split something deadly
too human
unfamiliar
Kerri: Ripped the shadows out from under us
Alyssa: They force fed me my lips for breakfast the next morning
Make me fiber

Miles:
Some murmurs have come from the disloyal
For the weak will always falter
They have rejected our laws
Defied our fines
If harder enforcement is what will convert the misled
Then we will take the responsibility
To stop the insolence
Through whatever means necessary.
And bring peace to our nation

A/M/K: whatever means necessary (in round, at means)

Kerrolita: He fell from the swingset
Face scrunched in pain,
He screams.
Kneeling down to comfort my little brother’s face
Eyes woven together like cloth
I press hard on his bleeding wounds
Whisper into his little ear not to cry
He cant cry, he can’t cry
(Don’t cry, don’t cry)

Miles: There are no tears

Kerri: I watch my brother’s pupils dilate
Fear-filled, red drops dripping out
Of his lidless sockets
I was holding him when they came for me
Arms frozen around his shrinking frame
They had to break both shoulder blades to unhinge me from him
Cut my fingers from his face
Make me fiber

Miles: There is no embracing

Meg:
This world has turned inside out
To change the organs of our beings
Can blood flow cold?
Can love live in a vacuum?
Will I be enough to feed beginnings to people before the end?

Miles: There are no messy emotions here

Meg: There are still a few of us
Swingset kids pumping to flip
And midnight society songbirds
Writing poems with paper cuts
Underneath your fingernails
We’re hidden
In the place where the rainbow forgot about
Was bleached out of
Throats slit and still stinging
Make me flour

Miles: There is no poetry.

Meg:
Removed our minds from books and art and emotions and the gutter
And place them in padded rooms
Milled us down

Kerri & Meg:
Make me fiber

Kerri: I dream in the colors they tried to drain from his skin

Alyssa & Meg:
Make me flour

Alyssa:
Make my broken bones stretchers
For canvas we’ll paint one day


Miles: These are the laws of the New Republic
This is the life of the New Republic
Welcome to the dawn of the great new

Meg: (WHISPER)
Can you make bread of me?

meg and mine team piece

After the check part:

And when we've swallowed everyone else's culture
will you have created a new soul
or just drowned the one you were given?

We are waiting
on the brink of change
turning over our earth
yet leaders will not save our hearts
only the connection of our essence
touching for reverence in the dim lights
of our future will kiss the face
of something greater than me
and make the world turn over in alms
peace and blessings to all

REW NEPUBLIC

Miles:
Welcome citizens of the New Republic
We have come here on the plane of a new horizon
Rising higher in our humanity
We live in victory now.
We have abolished crime.
We have rid ourselves of war.
We have become a powerful, functioning machine,
And now we can live free.
We are free.
In the rise of the New Republic.

Kerri:
I remember
Her hands felt soft
Holding mine through parks before the shadows came
Palms pressed together until they ticketed our affection
But this wasn’t the first time
My closet told a story of the price tag
Every kiss paid for in full

Meg: Will they remember
When touches felt like new days
(Alyssa: A love forbidden)
Sunsets on your skin
Mill me down

Miles:
Some murmurs have come from the disloyal
For the weak will always falter
Because they can not accept some slight discomfort
They have rejected our laws
Defied our fines
If harder enforcement is what will convert the misled
Then we will take the responsibility
To stop the insolence
Through whatever means necessary
And bring peace to our nation.

Both: Through whatever means necessary.

Alyssa: Mine was smiling
It had been years since I remembered to do so
Was a little rusty in my rendering
I crowbar bent my mouth into a pale pink half moon
Remembered what it felt like to be weightless
Before all of this happened
*before them
(meg: we're all just trying to find the sun again)
And that’s when they came for me
With their hollow eyes and metal faces
They saw my lips split something deadly
too human
unfamiliar
they ripped my shadow out from under me
force fed me my lips for breakfast the next morning
and it tasted like the pages of books my mother used to read me

Kerrolita: He fell from the swingset
But mamas not watchin’ him
Her freckled nose in a charcoal book
Face scrunched in pain,
He screams.
Kneeling down to comfort my little brother’s face
Eyes woven together like cloth
I press hard on his bleeding wounds
Whisper into his little ear not to cry
He can’t cry, he can’t cry

Miles: There are no tears

Kerri: I watch my brother’s pupils dilate
Fear-filled, red drops dripping out
Of his lidless balls
My mother stood lifeless
Wrapped her arms around herself
Cos it was the closest thing to a hug she could find

Miles: There is no embracing

Alyssa:
I was holding her when they came for me
Arms frozen around her shrinking frame
They had to break both shoulder blades to unhinge me from her
Cut my fingers from her face
I was stained beet red and screaming,
Plucked from the earth before ripening long enough
I opened my eyes to darkness
Collapsed in a ball of broken bones
I could feel the rest of them around me
Quiet, broken just the same

Meg:
Make me fiber
This world has turned inside out
To change the organs of our beings
Can blood flow cold?
Can love live in a vacuum?
Will I be enough to feed beginnings to people before the end?

Miles: There is no laughter



Meg: There are still a few of us
Swingset kids pumping to flip
And midnight society songbirds
Writing poems with paper cuts
Underneath your fingernails
We’re hidden
In the place where the rainbow forgot about
Was bleached out of
Throats slit and still stinging

Miles: There is no poetry.

Meg:
Removed our minds from books and art and emotions and the gutter
And place them in padded rooms
Milled us down

Kerri & Meg:
Make me fiber

Kerri:
All I did was catch his tear with my hand

Alyssa & Meg:
Make me flour

Alyssa:
Make my broken bones stretchers
For canvas we’ll paint one day

Miles: These are the laws of the New Republic
This is the life of the New Republic
Welcome to the dawn of the great new

Meg: (WHISPER)
Can you make bread of me?

Final Sleep Paralysis

A: (simultaneous buzzing)
K: Usually it starts with the buzzing
faint at first
a hollow friction organ grinding inside my eardrum
electric like TV static
until it dances its way to a sound only the devil is capable of making

A: Imagine your body being melted
metal bent twisted till your fingers burn glowing
you try to scream but your jaw bones been broken
and you’d run but your arms are nailed to your bedpost crucifix
by something you can only describe as ungodly
something you can’t see or smell but know its hunched over your half sleeping body
as it tries to drag you rag dolled back to hell with it

B: Sleep paralysis- a condition where after a period of sleeping, the conscious person is unable to move upon waking up
A: But it’s so much more than that

K: I don’t blame my mother for not understanding
who wouldn’t try to rationalize the possession of their daughter?

A: Take it easy on the caffeine before bed
and try to lay off the sugar
K: But nothing in this natural world can make it go away
A: A nightlight will keep things from taking shape in your mind
K: The darkness isn’t even what scares me anymore
A: Night terrors are common in children
K: I’d be happier with a night terror

A: It’s nothing [sternly]
K: If nothing is the pressure of evil weighing dense on your chest
till you’ve sunken through your mattress down to hell
as you desperately try to cling on to your bedpost
but your ancient limbs are arthritis ridden
like porcelain joints
that even if you could move them
would snap

Then yeah, it’s nothing

B: There are things that go bump in the night across state lines
A: Different demon

K: Same intention

A: Kurdish people speak of the Mottaka
an evil spirit that lies on top of its victim in the middle of the night and suffocates it as a result of committing sin
K: In New Guinea, people refer to this phenomenon as "Suk Ninmyo", believed to originate from sacred trees that use human essence to sustain its life. The trees are said to feed on human essence during night as to not disturb the human's daily life, but sometimes people wake unnaturally during the feeding, resulting in the paralysis.
A: En Mexico se me subió el muerto
K: In St. Lucia the kokoma will take you
B: These shape-shifting figures have hand picked their victims
and we can do nothing to stop it but sleep

K: It’s all in your head they say
B: Just a post synaptic inhibition of motor neurons in the pons regions in the brain

K: Yet I swear

the sulphur still lingers

A: I’ve been to the ninth circle and felt my wings freeze

K: Dante ain’t got shit on me

A: I can’t say I’m sure what to believe in anymore
too many times I’ve tightrope walked the line between rationalization and madness
and wake to find myself straight jacketed in silent repose
undulating in pools of my own insanity
as the incubus perches himself a vulture on my chest
and tells me he is everything but the dream I wish for him to be

K: Not everything reduces itself to prime numbers

can’t condense my quench for an explanation

Cause no matter how hard I squeeze The Holy Bible to my chest, with a dream catcher in my palm

It

Doesn’t

Help

all I can do is clutch onto reality with half closed eyelids like a lunar eclipse

as I accept the grey vulnerability I expose when I slumber

B: There are things that haunt us in their translucence
K: Things that cling to our skin like shadows when we sleep
A: And have trouble letting go by morning
but I’ve learned to let the blackness overtake me
K: Strip me of a half waking reality like a heat wave
A: Swallow me whole like Jonas
as I float in the whale belly of night
K: Drown me in a liquid darkness suffocating with death riding on my breast
A: Because the friend of the devil is a friend of mine

B: Take my hand child (hold hands)
trust in the matter of my flesh
for there be nothing to fear but…

(let go of hands)

sleep paralysis WIP 2

A: (simultaneous buzzing)

K: Usually it starts with the buzzing

faint at first

a hollow friction organ grinding inside my eardrum

electric like TV static

until it dances its way to a sound only the devil is capable of making


A: imagine your body being melted

metal bent twisted till your fingers burn glowing

you try to scream but your jaw bones been broken

and you’d run but your arms are nailed to your bedpost crucifix

by something you can only describe as ungodly
something you can’t see or smell
but know its hunched over your half sleeping body

as it tries to drag you rag dolled back to hell with it



B: sleep paralysis- a condition where after a period of sleeping, the conscious person is unable to move upon waking up.
A: but there's more to it than that



K: I don’t blame my mother for not understanding
who wouldn’t try to rationalize the possession of their daughter?


A: Take it easy on the caffeine before bed
and try to lay off the sugar

K: but nothing in this natural world can make it go away

A: A nightlight will keep things from taking shape in your mind

K: The darkness isn’t even what scares me anymore

A: Night terrors are common in children

K: I’d be happier with a night terror
A: It's nothing [sternly

K: If nothing is the pressure of evil weighing down on your chest

till you’ve sunken through your mattress down to hell

as you desperately try to cling on to your bedpost

but your ancient limbs are arthritis ridden

like porcelain joints

that even if you could move them

would snap
Then yeah, it’s nothing



A: there are things that go bump in the night across state lines

K: different demon, same intention



A: Kurdish people speak of the Mottaka

an evil spirit that lies on top of its victim in the middle of the night and suffocates it as a result of committing sin

K: In New Guinea, people refer to this phenomenon as "Suk Ninmyo", believed to originate from sacred trees that use human essence to sustain its life. The trees are said to feed on human essence during night as to not disturb the human's daily life, but sometimes people wake unnaturally during the feeding, resulting in the paralysis.

A: en mexico se me subió el muerto

K: in st lucia the kokoma will take you

B: these shape-shifting figures have hand picked their victims
and we can do nothing to stop it but sleep




A: I've been to the ninth circle
and felt my wings freeze
K:Dante ain't got shit on me

K: Its all in your head they say

B: just a post synaptic inhibition of motor neurons in the pons regions in the brain

K: yet I swear the sulphur still lingers



A: I can’t say I’m sure what to believe in anymore

too many times I’ve tightrope walked the line between rationalization and madness

and wake to find myself straight jacketed in silent repose
undulating in pools of my own insanity

as the incubus perches himself a vulture on my chest

and tells me he is everything but the dream I wish for him to be



K: Not everything can reduce itself to numbers
Can’t condense my quench for an explanation
Just clutch onto reality with half closed eyelids like a lunar eclipse
As I accept the grey vulnerability I expose as I slumber


B: there are things that haunt us in their translucence

K: things that cling to our skin like shadows when we sleep

A: and have trouble letting go by morning



A but I’ve learned to let the blackness overtake me

K: strip me of a half waking reality like a heat wave

A: swallow me whole like Jonas
as I float in the whale belly of night

K: drown me in a liquid darkness suffocating with death riding on my breast

A: because the friend of the devil is a friend of mine



B: take my hand child

trust in the matter of my flesh

for there be nothing to fear but

Meg & Miles Team Peace thus far:

F:John Wise Said:
“Our bodies are composed of matter,
Frail, brittle, and liable to be destroyed by a thousand accidents.”

B: But what about our souls?

Incest has clawed away the innocence from night
And when a man rapes a woman before slitting her throat
He’s attempting to pull her soul out through her insides

Genocide is not about the body count
But the crumbling of a person’s spirit.

When a wife loses her husband
she’s a widow
When a child loses a parent
he’s an orphan
When a parent loses a child there’s no words
Just spirit broken

We’ve forgotten to press our ear to the ground
World’s been waiting
And she’s tired
I’ve seen in her eyes
Like moon can’t make her blue
And the sun can’t make her cry

Earth keeps digesting these bombs
Explosive Diarrhea
And I keep feeding it Tums
But nothing seems to settle her stomach.

She is burning with fever
Men with oil-laden pockets force feed their toxins
Til her core quakes

Like an old woman whose grandchildren never visit
She watches the dawn crack to gray
Everyday
Joints ache from the solitude

Like her lips were partly parched
And we wait for dust to save our soul
Made us once
Can it birth us again?

Flesh death doesn’t concern me
Because we were born to die
Mortal skin is just a shell for what’s inside waiting to fly

In a second we could be particles
People dust
But what about our souls?

Have you ever looked into the eyes of a homeless person?
Of course not.

Because no ones making Gandhis anymore
No one’s bones stick out of the surface to prove we are humans, first
Unless an eye for an eye
Makes the rich get cribs, rims, and turn their bodies into diamonds when they die.

Remember when people could fly?
Of course not.

No one is making Marleys anymore
Got shot and walked from the grave to sing your heart a song
No one’s going to be a Jesus to bleed to death to save a soul

Because we’re turned him into crystals on a crucifix around our necks
We’ve made him stained glass
And we even lied about his skin color to sell it to the masses

We’ve globalized it
Capitalized it
And anything alternative is fading unless
It’s marketable
Boxable
Ready for retail
Eastern philosophy
Check
Meditation
Check
African dance
Check
Tribal Medicine
CHECK

You can’t put culture on your resume
1992: I sold all my worldly possessions to help the poor
1994:


..........
(WE NEED AN ENDING!!!!!!)