Free Slammed by Colleen Hoover Page B

semester.
     
    “ Performance Poetry resembles traditional poetry, but with an added element; the actual performance. ”
     
    “ Performance?” Javi asks, disdained. “You mean like in that movie about the dead poets? Where they had to read crap in front of the whole class?”
     
    “ Not exactly,” Will says. “That’s just poetry.”
     
    “ He means slamming,” Gavin adds. “Like they do down at Club N9NE on Thursdays.”
     
    “ What’s slamming?” a girl inquires from the back of the room.
     
    Gavin turns toward her, “It’s awesome! Eddie and I go sometimes. You have to see it to really get it,” he adds.
     
    “ That’s one form of it,” Will says. “Has anyone else ever been to a slam?”
     
    A couple of other students raise their hand. I don’t.
     
    "Mr. Cooper, show them. Do one of yours," Gavin says.
     
    I can see the hesitation in Will's face. I know from experience he doesn’t like being put on the spot.
     
    "I'll tell you what. We'll make a deal. If I do one of my pieces, everyone has to agree to go to at least one slam this semester at Club N9NE."
     
    No one objects. I'd like to object, but that would require raising my hand and speaking. So, I don't object.
     
    "No objections? Alright, then. I'll do a short one I wrote. Remember, slam poetry is about the poetry and the performance."
     
    Will stands in the front of the room and faces the students. He shakes his arms out and stretches his neck left and right in an attempt to relax himself. When he clears his throat, it's not the kind of throat clearing people do when they're nervous; it's the kind they do right before they yell.
     
     
     
     
     
    Expectations , evaluations, internal evasions
     
    Fly out of me like puddles of blood from a wound
     
    A fetus from the womb of a corpse in a tomb
     
    Withered and strewn like red sheets on the bed
     
    Of an immaculate room.
     
     
     
    I can't breathe ,
     
    I can't win,
     
    From this indelible position I'm in
     
    It controls the only piece of my unfortunate soul
     
    Left to fend for itself in this hollowed out hole
     
    That I dug from within, like a prisoner in
     
    An unlocked cell sitting in the deepest pits of hell
     
     
     
    Unencumbered he's not in his sweltering spot
     
    He could open the door 'cause he don't need a damn key
     
    But then again,
     
    Why would he?
     
    Circumlocution is his revolution.
     
     
     
     
     
    The silence in the room is deafening. No one speaks, no one moves, no one claps. We are in awe. I am in awe. How does he expect me to transition if he keeps doing things like this?
     
    "There you go," he says matter-of-factly as he walks back to his seat. The rest of the class period is spent talking about slam poetry. I try hard to follow along as he goes into further explanation, but the entire time I’m simply focused on the fact that he hasn’t made eye contact with me. Not even once.
     
    ***
     
    I claim my seat next to Eddie at lunch as we set our trays down. I notice a guy that sits a couple of rows behind me in Will’s class walking toward us. He is balancing two trays with his left arm, and his back pack and a bag of chips in the right. He positions himself in the seat across from me and proceeds to combine the food onto one tray. When that task is complete, he pulls a two-liter of coke out of his backpack and places it in front of him, unscrewing the lid and drinking directly from it. As he is chugging the soda, he looks at me and places it back down on the table, wiping his mouth.
     
    “ You gonna drink that chocolate milk, New Girl?”
     
    I nod. “That’s why I got it."
     
    “ What about that roll? You gonna eat that roll?”
     
    “ Got the roll for a reason, too.”
     
    He shrugs and reaches across to Gavin’s tray and takes his roll just as Gavin turns around and swipes at his hand, a moment too late.
     
    “ Dude, Nick! There’s no way you’re gaining ten pounds by Friday. Give it up!” Gavin yells.
     
    “