Out of the Poison, Out of the Compost

Choreopoem from April 2026

Baby I don’t know where I’m from.

nine different homes in three different countries in four different states and I feel about as jointed as you could think of

But thats the dunya of the now

Something in me is a little more ancient 

I can remember and recall things that didn’t happen to me

I can peel back the hundred-year oak ring to my ancestors and scurry across the tightrope of time to where 

Someone tried to scatter to the wind the ashes of my lineage

From their carnage

From their courage

But that was no use for this wayward walker

She is 

The ashes

She reads the reams of tomes on her arms

Where someone burned her foremothers at the stake

Someone sanitized and colonized the deep pulse of the womanhood in soil and earth

And then taught her to cast blame onto every other woman she saw

But deeper in the recesses of her skin and her bones are chestnut trees and clarence, juniper and wormwood, hawthorn and gooseberry

The smell of a lush European forest that I actually got to experience

Which awakened chimes up my spine so I could remember what it felt like to press fresh meadowfoam against my back in the springtime in my homeland

Where cold earth felt solid

Where it felt finally like where I belonged

And I was blessed with that memory of knowledge through wood and bark and earth a long while through my adolescence

That was home like I had never experienced before

CUT

Do you hear me? 

Do you hear me? 

The voiceless, the empty room, the empty sigh has no one to mirror back

Get comfortable

Get comfortable

Too often you come here with bags and bags of shit you’ve carried

You collect baggage from every corner, every person, every breathing being

Let go

I miss you though

I need reflection

Why

I need to know I’m not crazy, I need to know I’m not alone, I need someone to tell me I’m okay, someone to approve my presence

Why

I’m not enough and I’m too much– I can’t gauge how present I should be here

Let that shit go

Let her go baby 

Write yourself into your story

Give yourself a chance to exist 

I started thinking about my eight-year-old self

How no one cared whether she was too much or too little

She was just enough 

Just her

Just a child 

And children are our most adored

Adorn her in the magic of expression

Bring her the gift of true self-love

I do love myself 

But why

Because I’m sweet and kind and generous

That all has to do with others

But we exist in community, we exist with others, my strength is in my care for them and my care for their wellbeing

But you apologize 

Stop apologizing

It’s the hardest thing you are gonna have to do

It’s the worst lesson and the best of results 

Become self-assured baby

Write yourself in

CUT 

[Hum x4]

Let’s go for a walk

Let’s go care for your heart

What if we close it up and run away instead? What if we evade the shame? 

You’re right it’s the worst feeling– better not feed it better to hide it away 

Better to try that first before leaning in

That seems safer

That seems safer

Can you hear the heartstring snag, let the bum ring out, tie the spirit back down? 

Can you pluck the chord of disbelief, try to forget the town and forget their teeth? 

Every time they swore, every time they jerked, every time they gutted you head to toe

Every time they impaled, every time they killed, every time they whored your girlhood gone

But you did something else

You faced the music every single time

You couldn’t forgive yourself quick enough

Compartmentalize or forget the huff

You swallowed the swords

You ate fire

You friggin forged the stones of your hatred on your heart

You stopped running and ate and swallowed

Why

Hating yourself was easier than hating the world

Taking the blame was easier than getting cast out and aside

You wanted to be a part of the world in its lacquer

You wanted to feed yourself the medicine of the root 

You wanted to 

But blame and shame became your badge of honor 

Your passport to home

Baby you are home

Home is in the human connection 

In the grass swaying golden in the green

In the forgiveness that feels like lapping water spooned to your face

Can you embrace the rapture of who you are? 

Every part? 

Every eyelash every feather every synapse flowing currents through your brain in your prayer 

Cuz baby your very existence is a prayer

Your every mystery is a joy

Your hero is you 

Fall into the waters of your mother’s cup and pray

Heroes fear no relief

CUT

Who told you that

Who told you that

Who told you who told you who told you who told you

I hated finding out that you were wrong

I hated finding out that you had gutted yourself

I don’t want to live in the dark anymore

I don’t want to carry the burden of the world

I want to find joy 

I wanted to hang you

I wanted you to feel the suffering of every single person on this planet

I wanted you to forget your own essence and drink the poison from my cup alone

I didn’t

I can’t

That doesn’t even make sense

Forget

Move on

Impress

Pray

The first time was better

The first time I believed in my essence

I believed I was good still

I believed I was made of love and made of the golden light I had dreamt of I had seen

Did you pray? 

I prayed a lot

I was prayer

I was fear gone

I was connection I was hope 

When did you forget that? 

When I internalized the suffering and excavated it for all to see

When I lifted it all to the world and stopped pretending 

CUT

I heard it inside first

Left it a long while

Excavated 

Excavated

Excavated