Most people that don't know me, they were like, oh Jolson's always smiling and happy and stuff,
but now I'm becoming more comfortable with admitting that I'm not okay to people.
Like I'm not smiles and rainbows and butterflies, like I'm not always optimistic.
I'm not this like perfect selfless lover, you know what I'm saying?
This person that loves all the time and always like trying to be happy.
I don't try to be happy all the time and that's in my poetry.
Poetry, I think it was just more so trying to reach out.
Usually my poetry is like a cry for remembering his alcohol scented kisses staining my forehead.
I can feel his illness creeping on my skin, impersonating the arms of the man I love
on the nights when the man I love would rather hold anything, any one else but me.
This poem is about my dad and my fear of becoming like him.
I wrote that poem and I'm like, you know, like am I an addict?
Can I be an addict?
Like is that going to awaken in me one day?
And, and I get off stage and people are like, good job, great poem, that was powerful.
I'm like, didn't you just hear me?
When your lips are pressed against the edges of these red solo cups,
they will allow my poison to make love to your blood.
Meanwhile, my subconscious is always there.
It's always their time to scream over that voice and it's screaming.
Do you want to be looked at the way you looked at your father?
Do you, do you want to hurt the people you love the way he hurts you and your mother?
Do you want the love of your life to cry in your lap because you just can't let go of the bottom?
One thing I'll never regret is I always give, like at the end of the day,
all that matters is how much you've given and how much you loved.
I believe in that, like selflessness.
Like I love people and I love the people I surround myself with
and I want to love them and I want to give and sometimes I'm tired though.
Like sometimes I wonder if it's worth it, like just like loving so much.
Like I try to, I'm not perfect but like sometimes I wonder if it's worth it.
You don't see me, why would you?
I am on a stage spotlight on me and you don't see me.
Why would you?
I called him a couple of days ago and I told him I'm like,
I don't want to be your friend anymore.
I was crying.
I'm the invisible woman standing next to him, lying next to him.
I'm the woman whose hand is only good enough to be held in isolation.
I'm the woman he won't appreciate in public spaces.
When I try to hold his hand, he pulls it away when I get too close.
He dodges my body, makes sure to laugh as if it were a joke.
Meanwhile, he, he comes inside of my home every other night.
He fucks me so gently.
Sometimes he thinks he loves me too.
Or maybe he thinks that he was too rough.
I don't really have like a home to go to.
Like I don't have that.
And when he was around, it kind of felt like home.
It felt safe.
And, and that's a problem because it's not, it's not safe.
And I may be a little too insensitive.
He, he can't, he can't, he can't see me.
He, he won't allow himself to see me.
And I, I, I can't see me.
I, I can't see me being this.
Tonight let us raise a glass to the lost, the damned, the mad, the ones in love.
For a bit of them isn't all of us.
And that's who I write to, to the lost, to the damned, the mad, and the ones in love.
I think that's beautiful.
