The button below will take you to a blog following Demetrius's progress in his latest project: Sonder. Demetrius wrote, produced, and is now directing and performing in Sonder. Follow the link to learn more.
Winter Walk
,Water crawled in, through the mesh tips of my shoes.
It fell in small pellets from my curls,
just tickling my eyelashes as it skirted by.
My hands rested in my pockets. At first the sensation was cold,
But after a few minutes my palms raged like fire as the blood evacuate from my fingertips.
In due time I was numb to the cold that continued to rip away at my exterior.
I walked to my class, my backpack strapped tightly to my shoulders.
The cold seemed to engulf my eyes, and dive into my nostrils.
I sped up, but the wind sped up with me.
Walking always takes me somewhere,
My pace has an inverse effect on the world around me.
Freezing gives the world a chance to move again.
But if I keep moving everything else seems to slow.
Even stop. As long as I just keep walking, nothing can catch up to me.
Just keep moving and the rest of the world
has to wait for its chance
to interrupt you.
My stresses are emitted from my pores,
and for a few moments,
they seem omitted from my existence.
Regardless my speed, the water will seep through that mesh
the real world eventually pains me to remember.
Hell, it’s cold outside.
Body Language
I remember the situation so well in some ways. But
the words slip my mind. What I said. What she said.
No recollection. Her lip curling upward to form that first syllable,
the humph of her hand going to her hip. Her head tilting
ever so slightly in the opposite direction. More syllables
percussively booming and pattering out of her,
making footprints in the air.
What I do remember
was her eyes.
They had lost the flare
that had once lit them.
The way she stood one leg behind the other,
Never squaring her body to mine. Leaning in for a hug,
goodbye, only a single arm to offer in return for my
overzealous embrace. As if to really say good riddance.
I have replayed the moment in my mind for hours
now, never fully understanding what happened.
Where did the interest die? When did the care dissipate?
Each of her motions flips a page in this book, emotions
scrawled from margin to margin. Arms, legs, lips, and eyes
folding and contorting, scrawling messages across her figure,
in a language that I thought I knew.
Every page written as if mirrored. Only some images
register clearly this way but I extract meaning nonetheless.
Through subconscious selection,
the words won’t correlate with any sense of wonderment in me.
I have no interest in them.
They forget to matter for me.
No
I forget to care about them.
I was not listening.
That is why it all faded.
Busy Body
It’s mom?
My internal distaste almost audible.
Why does she always text me when I'm busiest.
Counting the steps to rehearsal grows tiring and confusing.
The thought of singing rings out from my soul, rallying my body forward.
The stresses of the day finally coasting to a halt as I approached the finish line.
I stopped at the light on the corner of State and Washington.
The languidly blinking light in the upper corner
Of my phone communicated a monotonous message.
My phone was going to die soon.
Not so fresh out of cheer practice, my shirt
Latched to my body under my jacket.
I paced along the pavement,
Traversing the terrain of the treacherous State street sidewalk.
I had a long walk ahead of me. The cold
caressed my fingertips whenever my hands came out from hiding.
I was reluctant to check my phone along the way.
A block away I finally Paused
I opened the message.
The text dimly lit my phone.
“Grandma is in the ICU”.
I paused.
Inhale.
Eyes up. Chin up.
Shoulders fall forward, dropping back into stride.
I shoved the phone into my pocket, turned right, and continued my trek to rehearsal.
Cognitive Dissonance
"Manifesto.
An essay about who I am now. Who I want to be later. And why you should care.
My first thought?
“I want to make art that helps people.”
My manifesto was experiencing a bit of an identity crisis.
I was only able to give myself an ideal me. I could not even present myself with the surface, but rather a representation of what I wished the surface was. I do want to help people, but even Freud knew that there is more to it than that. There always is.
I only acknowledged an ideal me.
Please allow me to show you a real one."
Above is an introduction to Cognitive Dissonance. Cognitive Dissonance is a performance of spoken word joined with video projection. The button below will take you to the full performance.
Above is an introduction to Cognitive Dissonance. Cognitive Dissonance is a performance of spoken word joined with video projection. The button below will take you to the full performance.
