Poetry and Coffee

Sounds pretty good for a Monday morning. I'm not usually all that into slam poetry, but this guy proved me wrong. Here's a written version of the poem, which has become one of my favorites - particularly the end.

We Were Emergencies - Buddy Wakefield

A poet can stick anything into the fog and make it look like a ghost.
But tonight 
let us not become tragedies.
We are not funeral homes with propane tanks in our windows
lookin’ like cemeteries. Cemeteries are just the Earth’s way of not letting go.
Let go.
Tonight, poets, let’s turn our wrists so far backwards
that the razor blades in our pencil tips
can’t get a good angle on all that beauty inside.

Step into this
with your airplane parts
and repeat after me with all your heart:
I no longer need you to fuck me as hard as I hate myself.
Make love to me
like you know I am better than the worst thing I ever did.
Go slow.

I’m new to this
but I have seen nearly every city from a rooftop without jumping.
I have realized the moon did not have to be full for us to love it.
We are not tragedies stranded here beneath it.

If my heart really broke every time I fell from love
I’d be able to offer you confetti by now.
But hearts don’t break, y’all, they bruise and get better.
We were never tragedies.
We were emergencies.
You call 9 – 1 – 1.
Tell them I’m havin' a fantastic time.