The author, Cam, performing her poem "DEFCON" inside of an art museum, July 29 2017
Two months ago, I performed a spoken-word poem titled "DEFCON", named after our DEFCON military defense system in the United States. It was about a boy who I constantly felt at war with, struggling with our hookup past, tempestuous mental health present, and uncertain future. Each stanza escalated in passion and heartbreak as the numbers counted down from 5 to 0. By 1, I was screaming.
That was something I hadn't intended. It was a snap-decision I made during the performance, filling any breaths of silence with my echo. It was one of my best poetry performances ever, if not the best. And I felt beautiful for it afterwards - cleansed, powerful, freed from this torment.
Then, he texted me later that night. He sent me three words that unraveled every lesson my art had taught me, every ounce of independence: I miss you.
And that is the kind of blood oil that pumps through my machinery. I run on this toxic energy. My art is made of this smog. And somehow, I breathe this. It's romantic, this kind of heartbreak, this kind of pain I can transfer onto the page or onto the stage. Look at how much I have to say about the same thing again and again. Look at this solace of creating art out of misery. Look how beautifully I bleed.
Why am I a heartbreak artist? Why did a younger self live in fear of running out of heartbreak because it would mean running out of poetry? Yes, the cathartic aid of creating art out of pain is useful, necessary, glorious. But what about the same, repeating pain of boys or girls or any variation of a lover treating you like shit? Making you feel so not lovely, so opposite of glorious, like someone who is prettiest and most powerful when she is screaming about how much this hurts?
I worry that we see this substitution for therapy too often and everywhere we look. We see it portrayed in media --in TV shows, in books, in music -- as tragically beautiful. As though those words should coincide beside each other. This art becomes our voice instead of verbalizing the problem, instead of calling it out and kicking it out. We think that this pain must merit some presence in our lives because art has such a great presence in our lives. So we skewer the two together, decide that we can't have one without the other. We air our grievances and breathe them in again, inhaling carbon dioxide. It's almost like after creating this art we hold on even tighter to the heartbreak.
I'd love to say I have some solution to this. I wish I could say that I'm not proud of DEFCON and don't still have the poem memorized, safety off, ready to fire off of my tongue, heartbreak so hot I can still taste the metal of it. I wish this poem singed him, wish my pain was an exit wound in his chest.
But it falls on deaf ears. Certainly, only others who love this kind of heartbreak can truly hear the rhythm of it. The one who it was meant for, who inspired it all, couldn't possibly see or hear it. Smog doesn't have eyes or ears.
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