Vintage Nsay: Beauty Vs Brawn, Detroit 3.21.09

Sometimes I think am not cut out for this shit…I mean, everybody who KNOWS me, knows that I have gone thru my share of poetical esteem issues…..now…I have come a long, long way….a long way….I believe in myself…I believe in what I do, how I do it and what I say…I believe that I have a great ability and a great talent that other people wish they had….and I embrace it….fully…..nobody will EVER be able to tell me that I’m not “talented”….im very talented…in many areas other than writing…..but sometimes I wonder if I am meant to go outside of Indy’s state lines with my poetry…..and as soon as I type that, I recall all the places I HAVE been……which I guess would make this blog almost pointless, but not really, because had I not started writing it, I may not have had this epiphany….I have been lots of places….well maybe not lots, but definitely a few different ones….right now…I am in Detroit….a place of which I have always had issues with that go far outside and beyond the realm of poetry….but that’s another blog, another time…..so as I continue to type, I realize that this is all part of the cards…I will be here again in about a week and a half….ironically…this city holds so much pain for me….there is not a time I come into this city that I don’t get instantly reminded about the things that took place all the times I have been here…..there is not a moment that I am on the highways of Detroit, that I don’t wonder if this overpass im passing under is the same one I was walking barefoot over…..as I say, this city holds pain for me….so its only appropriate that it continues….and its funny because I am 30 now and the negativity in my life has been replaced with poetry’s positive signals and I try to move on and move beyond the past…..the only reason I am even discussing it now is because I’m having more and more epiphanies as I type…..so to bring it all back to my original point, I am in Detroit right now…..the comfort inn on Jefferson street to be exact…..I just left the Beauty vs Brawn competition for WoWps…..it was fun….I had a good time and the poets were great….despite the easy to spot favoritism on behalf of its on poets, I still managed a good time….I got up there though….I can’t believe it…nSAYchable got in a “competition”…not really a slam, but a competition none the less……I walked to the stage feeling like I had the fire and left the stage feeling blown out……I lost the round to the men…I was completely embarrassed….honestly, I wanted to cry, and thought about going outside to cry, but I knew people were out there smoking, so it just didn’t seem to make much sense….I was the first woman to lose ……it wasn’t a landslide loss, but it was a loss….and in my eyes, I probably only saw three or four signs up for me….lol…I know it was more…..they thought about counting the votes since the audience voted, but decided to take the L, since we were already up by three….so embarrassing to me….and it was that moment that started the beginning of this blog….I almost started wondering if I had what it takes to be a performer….again…I had a setback….minor though….I do have what it takes…I almost questioned myself and started to wonder if I should just stick to doing poetry in Indy, but the bottom line is I am not made for everyone’s ears and everybody is not going to think that I am the shit….hands down….however…I had one of my favorite poets, if not my favorite poet, tell me that I was good…..he told me that I fall into a small percentage of people who are good…..and he told me this based off the very poem I did an hour or so ago that almost made me loose my spirit….and I believed him then, and now because he did NOT have to tell me that …..And even if he didn’t mean it, I believe it….so there it is…I have been to ....New York....….performed at the Nuyorican…..and although the room wasn’t filled with people, there were people there and those that were there gave me a standing ovation….DID I SAY I WAS IN NEW YORK??!!...I have been to ....Cincinnati.... and I know I left them wanting more….they told me….same for St. Louis, Nashville and the other place we stopped at along the way…im sure I’m missing somewhere, but I have tons of places that I have left to go…. And I guarantee myself, when I get to those places, they’ll like me too….I’m actually willing to bet when I get back here, the same can be said….hell I got a standing O in Flint twice…..people standing to there feet is not what I base my esteem or my writing ability on, but knowing that I have been shown much, much love, many many times, with many different poems, is reason to cut the thought I was having short….I don’t need to question myself….I know who the fuck I am….I’m nsaychable baby…..I am kendria…I am poetry and poetry is me….together we feed off of each other, bringing light to dark arenas and attention where there is deficit….please…..they can’t break me here….I cried…I will say that I cried…my voice sounded horrible because I have a cold…a bad one….it sounded stuffy, hoarse, I couldn’t get my breathe right cause I can’t breath thru my nose, I was nervous and it was coming out in my voice….it sucked….my performance sucked…..I been hyping myself up all week, but I sucked, hands down…..SO….K.I.M (figure it out, if not, search one of my other blogs.)…..I may not be the shit, but im definitely the urine…hahahahaha…..and I’m hot…pissy hot negroes!!!...I can, no scratch that, I DO move people….all the time…even when I’m reading….I don’t fear reading…I don’t think it makes me any less of a poet….I actually read my new poems as opposed to taking the time (a lot of it) to memorize them, because I believe that at any point I could die, and I want that poem to be heard from my voice before that happens if it does before I get it in my head…..I am confident in myself, 30 times more than I used to be…I am happy….and I had a great time up here in the D…..the same place that holds so many negative memories for me….and maybe this one wants to be put in the negative file, but it won’t…it was another one of those “learning situations”….I had several epiphanies as I wrote this blog…I cried in the hallway and called a familiar voice at home to help re-energize me…but I’m back….I actually never left…..I’m a little disconnected right now because although I believe in everything I just wrote, sometimes its hard for me to bounce right back once I have a setback, which is something that I have to work on….but its really all good…..I am a poet…..and I am a writer….however, I am neither if I let opinions have too much power…..hmmm….I guess I didn’t do that bad….maybe they didn’t like me, but I liked most of them….maybe they showed some favoritism, but I still made it up there…..maybe they will never be a fan of nsay up here in Detroit, but I confronted the fear of competition….and the best thing I am taking away from it, is I will NEVER be a slam poet….but I will always be a POET….