POEM: “BOTTOM FEEDERS (I WANT TO BE LIGHT)” — I want to be light / Not like a broadcasted beacon / Blasted in hasthtags full of random / photos of yoga ashrams and world travel.

A dancer perfoms in the play "Swimming p

BOTTOM FEEDERS (I WANT TO BE LIGHT)

I want to be light
Not like a broadcasted beacon
Blasted in hasthtags full of random
photos of yoga ashrams and world travel.

Nor of my pretty skin
heated by the South Pacific suns
or surfing, tanned in a bikini
surrounded by foreign friends around a boozy meal.

I just wanna be light!
And radiate a warmth and comfort!
Like the skin under your jeans
on a winter day after you come in from the grocers.

I’ve seen and loved
the darkest. My Dad.
Telling me my mom didn’t give him blowjobs
and shooting his pellet gun at pictures of her face on a box in the basement.

It’s a Dad who rips up child support cheques
as your Welcome Home party entrance
after he brings you to his ‘home’ to Mississauga
saying about your mother: “Never have to deal with that bitch again.”

It’s the beady eyes of a drunk ex
who stole my book launch night again
with his moodiness and fright
as I ignored my fans to delight him in his vex.

It’s my last lunch in Ottawa
facing his addiction shakes and gout
turning anything I say
into about him, so self-absorbed and full of rot.

It’s years, and decades,
and a lifetime of blame
pointing my way, always my way
with them having nothing ever good to say.

Am I just that then – light?
That was tarred by fright:
Blackened as fuck so I could harden,
mobilized to fight or flight?

I want to be light
Not like a broadcasted beacon
Blasted in hasthtags full of random
photos of yoga ashrams and world travel.

Nor of my pretty skin
heated by the South Pacific suns
or surfing tanned in a bikini
surrounded by foreign friends around a boozy meal.

I don’t want to levitate
Or talk of religious context.
I want to swear with my wisdom
in a child-like grace and imperfection.

(I’m done equating ‘dark’ with sexy
bad boys are actually bad in bed, in flings.)

I want to be light and with substance
like an Ocean that’s resurfaced triumphant
after Mother Earth sucked it back, aghast!
when you punched her in the guts with your narcissism.

I want to be light in knowing
I was once breathless for only SO LONG, floating:
Cast adrift by a Narcissist London/Kiwi cunt
And embarrassed I flipped a traumatic accident into flattery:
and said I might have had his baby.

I want to be light in learning
I was once airhead for A MONTH, drifting in dating:
Confused by his word salads, pothead vacancy
Triangulation, bipolar alcoholic addictions, with a side order of lies, handjobs, future-faking & flattery.

Can I be light as I rise above the weight
that drags us down to the ground in defeat?
Can I be light now, please, as I bumble on the surface
Knowing depth is not “deep” without boundaries…

Like she says vulnerability
isn’t so without trust
It’s just flinging your shit
unsafely out in front.

Let me be “SO GOOD” light
That I blind the bottom feeders!
So they can’t find me in their hunts at night
And leave me the fuck alone to revive.

And let me be light so I’m done with this poetry
But not regret the canons I left behind in where I came from
But let me be free to grab the momentum
Toward positivity and become everything I’m made of.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, July 5, 2019

***

For DE, for helping me along my new way.
And gratefulness to musician/artist Joseph Arthur whose instagram videos are like medicine.