rainfest entry.

I’ve always told myself, listen to the feeling. Listen to the feeling… and then I feel nothing. I feel nothing at all. This feeling… these roadtrips… have become so much more than what it began as. Before I knew what was happening to me, I was submerged in it. It didn’t matter how many people were there. All that mattered were the same faces every time. We’ve seen each other grow up. We’ve seen people grow apart. We’ve seen how much of an impact we all have on each other. We’ve closed our eyes and we open them and no one has left. Ever since I was a little girl, when I was screaming to be loved, I was nurtured into silence. There are things that I have told people from the community that I am now a part of that I haven’t even told my own family. What is a girl supposed to do when the only people she knows won’t love her back? And listen to her? As I got older,there became a time when I could go out alone. I wouldn’t get phone calls asking where I was. I wouldn’t even get phone calls if I wasn’t home for a couple of days. Sometimes, I would get secretly jealous of my friends who’s parents called to check in on them or ask them if they were coming home for dinner. But, oh, how good it felt to to get away… and even if I was only at the show for a couple of hours… what I felt in that couple of hours got me through. If it was van full of people or just myself, I never felt alone. Well… that’s not always true. I’ve had my fair share of social ups and downs, but that’s life. I’ve also had my fair share of friends who have come and gone. But what I knew was this.There weren’t any rules. You were free to leave whenever you want, and I stayed long after the show was over, submerged in conversations about social classes, religion, sexism, therapy, veganism, demos… anything. Anything and everything. The drives home would feel like nothing, just swirls of memories blanketing me . I would take deep breaths, and I swear I could smell home. I could see home. That house with so many locks on the doors. My room with so many notebooks scattered on the floor. I would remember. What than man on stage said. And I’d take a look around. And I’d look into someones eyes around me. And I saw everything. I saw the neglect. I saw the pride. I saw the honesty. I remember thinking about it once…. That look. It’s like seeing first hand, the look in an animals eyes right before its life is being taken from it. Knowing in that moment that you have a connection with something. And you just wanted to hold onto it and take it all away at the same time. In those moments, I didn’t feel alone…. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write. Notebooks, dreams, stories, poems, diaries… the act of writing made me feel centered and whole. It still does. It’s my medication and my meditation. I’m honest about what I feel and what I fear. It always comes back to me. I’d go home and I’d write about the show. About who I met there, how many people were there, the condition of the venue… everything. I would write about everyone I met that night.. and I wonder how we were all brought together. At the end of the night, what kept us coming back? Did these people come from homes like the one I came from? Did they lie awake, with their hands over their ears? Did they look into the fragile faces of those they loved, hoping they loved them back? All I knew was this was happening before my time, and I thought that was beautiful.I am writing this entry in hopes of sharing the experience with the people attending this fest. My writing has identity issues. Hopefully I can make some friends along the way, that scratch beyond the surface and we can all feel human together.



last but not least, i wrote this entry for myself. the winner is announced march fifteenth.