Better Than Sex

You know when you wake up in the morning and the first thing that pops into your brain is the amazing thing that happened the night before? And then you lay in bed smiling, trying to remember every detail. No, I'm not talking about sex. I'm talking about poetry.

As most of you should know, I had an event at the Loft last night. The night began with a competition between some local poets, and the entire Phoenix slam team. They all came down from Phoenix to compete. A summer's worth of practice will do wonders for your performance and your poetry. The team dominated and one of them went home with the prize.

Then came our feature. After months of preparation, Team Tucson was about to showcase their work in a public venue. A group of people from my church were there. The amazingly awesome Team Phoenix was there. It was time.

The first poem was a group piece. I wrote most of it, and I performed it with someone else on my team. We had never done it for a crowd before. Group pieces are so much fun.

After a few more poems I was up again, this time with an individual piece. I knew this piece well, and there were only a few minor edits. What I had really been working on was performance. That performance was without a doubt, the best performance of my life. And one simple fact helped it on its way to greatness.

There was no mic.

A microphone had always tied me to one spot. Limited my movement. My feet had to be planted. But without this limitation I moved. I had never practiced that poem without imagining a mic in front of me, but the movements were easy, and so much fun. As I came to the end of the poem, I noticed a short stool in front of me Without thinking, as my words began to crescendo to the bellowing ending, I stepped up on the stool, raised my hands and roared to the audience:

"The world is doomed!"

Who needs sex when words can make you feel like that?