Here I am

Excuse me , may I have a moment of your time
See I'm new at this ...
I've never performed spoken word before..
I have to admit that I'm a little nervous my knees are shaking, trembling actually
My palms are sweaty and even my vision is blurry.

I've seen a lot of spoken word performers
Those guys look so cool
An adjective I've never used to describe myself.
I see them tip-toeing , raising their hands and eyes to high heaven
As if taken over by the poetry inside them.

See art in whatever form : spoken, visual or written has a life if its own
A baby you carry no much worse , a burden you carry
Something that if you don't get out your chest will consume you.

So here I am.
Here.
Nervous, shaking but loving every minute of it
Because since I could remember I have loved poetry
And this is who I am.

Before I was here in front of you ,
I used to live in my own world,
A world where Shakespeare , Keats , Dickinson and Achebe and I would all hang out.
They were my friends and we would sit together and have tea
Discuss elusive subjects: love , death and worse still - life

William would say:
To be or not to be
That is the question
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them?
To die - to sleep - no more
And by a sleep say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to ... tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

Marcel Proust (who I have a crush on says) :
I think that life would suddenly seem beautiful to us if we were threatened to die
Just think how many projects , travels , love affairs , studies
IT our life hides from us , made invisible by our laziness
Which certain of a future delays them incessantly
We don't do any of it, the cataclysm doesn't happen
We find ourselves int eh heart of normal life
Where negligence deadens desire.

Chinua Achebe sits quietly and utters:
Speed is violence
Power is violence
Weight is violence
But the butterfly seeks safety in lightness

I wake up. I'm not up there with the immortalized words of
William Shakespeare , Marcel Proust or Chinua Achebe
Here I am ...
In front of you. In front of poetry greats , awesome musicians and a magnificent audience
So from this day , if you ask where I will be:
Here.