TheBanyanTree: When I read

[dseaman77 at gmail.com]

I think I will do okay. But about halfway through the anxiety sets in and becomes apparent in my voice. I can't see the crowd. Just the lights shining in my eyes, and the microphone. I step up. There is no way to monitor the sound so I just speak in good faith. Hope that I am being heard cause I sure as hell cannot project worth a damn.

My throat tightens up, like I said, about halfway through. It was the same thing in communications class. Whenever it was my turn to speak I would start strong but at around the halfway point my throat would dry up and my voice got all wonky. 

Luckily I have the copy of the poem in front of me. A smarter person would be able to recite from memory. A smarter person would have a bottle of water with them on stage. But I read. Hide my eyes in the words. Wonder why the hell I even wrote them. What does this mean anyways? I think I just string words together that sound good but then when I read them it just sounds like gobbledygook spewing from my mouth.

But then it is over and the people clap. The applause is loud even though perhaps forced a little, out of kindness for the bell shaped old fart with his grey whiskers and goofy hat. And poetry that makes no sense.