Page 86 of Glass Half Full
The crowd whoops and holds their clenched fists up before releasing their fingers and shouting “Speak!” It’s how each poet gets welcomed to the stage, and it never fails to give me chills.
I don’t bother with an introduction. It’s not my style. I ignore the microphone and step to the front of the stage, starting things off with an older piece, one about my experience teaching the workshops. It means even more to perform it when I recognize some of the faces in the crowd as my students, still showing up to listen and perform all these years later.
“Whew!” I exclaim into the mic once the applause fades. “Is it just me, or is it hot in here? You guys are on fire tonight. Actually, can someone go check the kitchen? My boss will kill me if this place burns down.”
Not my finest joke, but I get a few chuckles. Now that I’m up here trying to share something other than a poem, the first case of genuine nerves I’ve ever felt on stage threatens to hit.
“As our fashionably unfashionable hat enthusiast of a host pointed out”—I pause to grin at the sight of Owen flipping me off where he stands at the back of the room—“I work here at Taverne Toulouse. ‘Work’ almost feels like the wrong word. Yes, it’s a hard job. Yes, we all take it seriously, but we do more than just work here. We laugh. We tease the shit out of each other. We hold each other up when we’re down. Sometimes...sometimes we even fall in love here.”
A lot of sighing follows. So does a lot of people pretending to gag.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m a sap. What I’m trying to say is that this place is special, and that’s why it’s so hard to announce that I’m leaving.”
There’s nothing pretend about the gasps that follow my announcement.
“In December, I’ll be stepping down as kitchen manager. I’m leaving to start a certification in radio broadcasting this January.”
I don’t know what I expected from the crowd, but it sure as hell wasn’t deafening applause. A few people even jump to their feet, and the first one is my mom.
Get it together, Trottard.
I still have another poem to get through. I can’t lose it right here on this stage.
“Thank you. Thanks.” I stop to clear the lump from my throat. “That means a lot. It’s taken a while for me to reach this point in my life. In a pretty crazy and uncharacteristic turn of events, I wrote a poem about it all.”
“NO WAY!” Zach shouts from the front row just as people start cheering again.
“Yes way, my friend, yes way. So if you’ll indulge me, as Owen ordered you to do, I’d like to share a piece called ‘Miracle.’”
I fix my eyes on the middle of the crowd and draw in a deep breath. I let the poem start somewhere deep inside me, feel its heat growing, getter hotter and stronger, as it burns its way through my chest and up my throat, finding words to make the people in front of me feel its fire.
Then I begin.
“Popcorn butter on my fingers
Superhero movie on the screen
Kicking my feet against the theatre’s booster seat
Thump. Thump. Thump.
‘Would you shut that kid up?’
And then
The surround sound crackles
While a bolt of lightning streaks across the screen
Imprinted on my eyelids
Seared into my retinas.
It’s only sparks and CGI
But I am still young enough
To step through the screen and feel the tall grass brush my knees
