Bleach the Black Away
I wrote this at about 4:00am while watching a movie and half falling asleep near the end. When I touched it up today, I was surprised at how much I had gotten down.
This is a monologue/spoken word piece for the CD dealie.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/b2p6mu
The recording I did is only the second time I read the piece aloud, so it's not polished and I got kinda nervous to get loud because my roommate is here...so, my voice is not quite modulating as it should.
I didn't expect the lyrical quality that's here. I found I couldn't read it without a beat.
The script for Bleach the Black Away:
Anne Shirley. Ariel. Pippi Longstocking. Jean Grey.
Growing up, all of the cool role models I ever had had something I was always envious of. Their realities opened up such a wide world of possibility…I wanted to speak in poetry and re-enact the tragedy of The Lady of Shalott. I wanted to lift horses with my bare hands and implant suggestive thoughts in other people’s brains. I wanted the possibility of completely transforming myself into something new. To enter a world yet closed to me.
To become something I wasn’t.
To become something I could never pass as.
To become a redhead.
You might say it’s stupid, but that red hair meant something. It represents passion. An untamable wildness filled with imagination and spunk. A temper that did not back down for anything.
Red meant fire. Lust. Vivacity.
Having black hair, you might as well have not existed. You were only good for being goth or a model minority who rose to the top of the class by learning algebra early and being able to tell your pronouns from your adverbs.
You were supposed to dream of going into business or medical school or getting accepted into I.T.
The door to the world of the redheads was shut.
Anne (with an “e”) Shirley’s dreams of places far beyond Avonlea, and even places within-with bosom-buddy Diane and aggravating-yet-charming Gilbert and the tirelessly sweet Matthew…sounded so foreign. So distant. There were possibilities for a girl born with fiery, carrot red hair that I didn’t feel were given to me.
I was so envious of her unabashed spunk.
Jean Grey, only the COOLEST super heroine to have ever lived…and died…died several times…she wore her red hair with style. And Wolvie wanted the girl with the red hair more than any other girl who walked into his life. The stoic ruby quartz glasses-wearing man wanted the girl with the red hair and wanted to make babies with her. DID make babies with her. In several different dimensions and universes. The dashing blond angelic playboy wanted the girl with the red hair for a brief time because even with all of her great compassion and capacity for gentleness, she is all fire and spirit, blazing a trail of suitors in her wake.
Having red hair was hot shit.
I thought…if I could just get rid of it all…leech the darkness from my roots, bleed it dry, bleach my hair til the blackness disappeared…I would feel all right again. I would feel safe and at home where I belonged, among the dreamers and the strong.
Where I could give impassioned readings of The Highwayman and sing at the top of my lungs to my heart’s content, frothy waves splashing over and around my newfound strawberry ringlets.
…but that isn’t quite right either. Even with all color stripped away from my now-coarse locks, I could never become a true Red. If it didn’t turn a dull, pasty orange, the unnaturalness would come out in the pallor of my skin and the discomfort and unfamiliarity of myself living in my own flesh.
How does one train to be Red?
I read the Dark Phoenix Saga a hundred times. I have all of L.M. Montgomery’s works in my bookshelf. I’ve seen Megan Follows break her slate over Gilbert’s head over and over again and over again. I’ve watched Ariel’s father transform her fins into something marvelous, something new, so that she could become a whole new person.
And even after all of this strenuous study, all of this mind-breaking concentration, all of this tantric ritual…I came to a realization.
It’s not all just in the hair.
This is a monologue/spoken word piece for the CD dealie.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/b2p6mu
The recording I did is only the second time I read the piece aloud, so it's not polished and I got kinda nervous to get loud because my roommate is here...so, my voice is not quite modulating as it should.
I didn't expect the lyrical quality that's here. I found I couldn't read it without a beat.
The script for Bleach the Black Away:
Anne Shirley. Ariel. Pippi Longstocking. Jean Grey.
Growing up, all of the cool role models I ever had had something I was always envious of. Their realities opened up such a wide world of possibility…I wanted to speak in poetry and re-enact the tragedy of The Lady of Shalott. I wanted to lift horses with my bare hands and implant suggestive thoughts in other people’s brains. I wanted the possibility of completely transforming myself into something new. To enter a world yet closed to me.
To become something I wasn’t.
To become something I could never pass as.
To become a redhead.
You might say it’s stupid, but that red hair meant something. It represents passion. An untamable wildness filled with imagination and spunk. A temper that did not back down for anything.
Red meant fire. Lust. Vivacity.
Having black hair, you might as well have not existed. You were only good for being goth or a model minority who rose to the top of the class by learning algebra early and being able to tell your pronouns from your adverbs.
You were supposed to dream of going into business or medical school or getting accepted into I.T.
The door to the world of the redheads was shut.
Anne (with an “e”) Shirley’s dreams of places far beyond Avonlea, and even places within-with bosom-buddy Diane and aggravating-yet-charming Gilbert and the tirelessly sweet Matthew…sounded so foreign. So distant. There were possibilities for a girl born with fiery, carrot red hair that I didn’t feel were given to me.
I was so envious of her unabashed spunk.
Jean Grey, only the COOLEST super heroine to have ever lived…and died…died several times…she wore her red hair with style. And Wolvie wanted the girl with the red hair more than any other girl who walked into his life. The stoic ruby quartz glasses-wearing man wanted the girl with the red hair and wanted to make babies with her. DID make babies with her. In several different dimensions and universes. The dashing blond angelic playboy wanted the girl with the red hair for a brief time because even with all of her great compassion and capacity for gentleness, she is all fire and spirit, blazing a trail of suitors in her wake.
Having red hair was hot shit.
I thought…if I could just get rid of it all…leech the darkness from my roots, bleed it dry, bleach my hair til the blackness disappeared…I would feel all right again. I would feel safe and at home where I belonged, among the dreamers and the strong.
Where I could give impassioned readings of The Highwayman and sing at the top of my lungs to my heart’s content, frothy waves splashing over and around my newfound strawberry ringlets.
…but that isn’t quite right either. Even with all color stripped away from my now-coarse locks, I could never become a true Red. If it didn’t turn a dull, pasty orange, the unnaturalness would come out in the pallor of my skin and the discomfort and unfamiliarity of myself living in my own flesh.
How does one train to be Red?
I read the Dark Phoenix Saga a hundred times. I have all of L.M. Montgomery’s works in my bookshelf. I’ve seen Megan Follows break her slate over Gilbert’s head over and over again and over again. I’ve watched Ariel’s father transform her fins into something marvelous, something new, so that she could become a whole new person.
And even after all of this strenuous study, all of this mind-breaking concentration, all of this tantric ritual…I came to a realization.
It’s not all just in the hair.