Spoken Word on Identity

Hello! During my creative writing class we were tasked with writing a spoken word on whatever we wanted to read for our class. I had a lot of ideas and I want to show you my process of how I decided what I was actually going to present.

First Idea:

words, words can describe me

there are many words I would choose to describe me

and then there are words others would choose for me

I might say that I am:

quirky

beautiful

pale skinned

brown haired

a poet

with anemia

and a bunch of other medical conditions no one ever heard of

I might say that I am:

a high-functioning autistic ( I realized after writing this poem that the term "high functioning" is frowned upon, so while I'm not going to change my original work, I just wanted to leave this note.)

that I love to:

read

and write

and doodle

I love to:

roller skate

play games

spend time with friends

and overread webtoons

yet others might say:

she's weird

and doesn't pick up social cues

she reads

and writes

she's blunt

she's damaged

sometimes she gets in over her head

her drawings look like a little kids

and

she loves her labels

she told herself she was aro/ace

she said she was autistic

she wants to confine herself

to put her in a box

and maybe they're right

maybe I like labels

and I like boxes

because they give me a sense of relief

they show me I am not alone

other people feel like me

other people avoid conversations with people they don't know

they don't pick up social cues

they are misunderstood

other people don't understand romantic feelings

they don't grasp their emotions

they don't like physical touch

and they don't feel attraction

they are like me

and yet they are not

we all grasp at straws

trying to find their own identities

because we are all individuals

and no words can fully embody out character

2nd Idea:

my straight brown hair

my pale as a white washed house skin

my stereotypical white person blue eyes

my family tree

tells the stories

of immigrants from

Germany

Wales

Ireland

and England of course

I'm mostly German

but I don't have any German traditions

my relatives fought in the Revolutionary War

I am a pure-bread American

but when my mum sings me a lullaby

it's Vietnamese

when I talk about my cousins

no one believes we are related

because they're not white like me

my parents learned Spanish

I've been to Mexico and Canada

a Welsh last name always mispronounced

a Latin middle name

a first name with a story

the story of a park

and a couple

3rd Idea:

(I ran with this one and my final spoken word is based on ideas from this one )

April 30th 1958

Lee Maxwell Wilhite

my great-grandfather died

on the San Bernadino freeway

he was 52

he left behind a wife and 5 kids

17-year-old triplets and 11-year-old twins

my grandma was one of those twins

they were rich

my great-grandfather was a businessman

along with his inventor best friend

they made money investing and selling

agricultural irrigation systems they invented

straight brown hair

white washed skin

pale blue eyes

she's a stereotypical white girl

her family tree

tells the story of immigrants from

Germany, Ireland and Wales

her relatives were apart of the original colonies

she has relatives who served in the revolutionary war

she's a purebred American

she doesn't have traditions from her "culture"

but she still remembers the Vietnamese lullaby her mum always sang to her

her Latin middle name

her always mispronounced Welsh last name.

As you probably noticed the second verse is very similar to the second verse in the 2nd spoken word I attempted.

This is the Spoken Word I read for my class:

(the lines in bold are said louder than the other lines)

Lee Maxwell Wilhite died

he was my great grandfather

he was 52

he left behind 17 year old triplets and 11 year old twins

he was a wealthy and well known businessman

my hair is straight and brown

my eyes are blue

my skin as pale as a t-shirt bleached in the sun

I have my anemia to thank for that

my family tree tells the story of immigrants from:

Germany

Ireland

and Wales

tells the story of relatives fighting in the Revolutionary War

November 1st 1993

William Giles died

he was my great-uncle

not that it actually mattered

my family had disowned him

he was alone

was this supposed to be a story about me

or my family?

i can't really remember

not that it matters for I am my family and they are me

I'm writing this in my closet

because I love enclosed spaces

and boxes

and labels

they tell me I'm not alone

they give me a sense of relief

just as my relative's stories bring me comfort

and show me solidarity

That's it. That's my spoken word! Did you notice how I had different segments? Usually, spoken words use this format:

funny

serious

funny

tie it all together

so I had my relative's "biographies" and then parts about me mixed into it, and then I related how their stories influenced me! I hope you enjoyed this :)