On The Road

Poet Samantha Barrow rode cross-country on a mission of mercy. She brought back this diary.

by Samantha Barrow

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Nov 29, 2006

Photos by Samantha Barrow

A slam poet who stutters told me after my second feature in Denver, Colo., that he thought the writing workshops I've been doing with survivors of sexual abuse sounded cool but "almost — naw I shouldn't say it..." "Go ahead. I'm leaving in the morning and I'm not easily offended."

"Like the Special Olympics of erotica."

"Oh, Jesus." He pulled his shoulders up and around his ears like I was going to hit him.

"But I'm actually glad you said that," I continued, "because I think that's what a lot of people have been thinking, they just didn't want to hear themselves say it out loud."

The way we think about healing our psychological/sexual selves after trauma is different than the way we imagine bringing our physical bodies back into shape. We have crisis hotlines and check-ups, but not a lot of space for celebratory rehab. There is too much shame, fear, isolation and continuing abuse for us to easily talk about the joy our bodies are made for. It is hard to trust that pleasure does not have to wait until pain is absent, but rather can work alongside the resurfacing of trauma to spur the healing process. Besides, we might get hurt again. If we write our erotic imaginations, we might find snakes in that grass that we don't want to or can't deal with right now.

But we are not living in a safe world. No matter how many tire swings we eliminate from playgrounds or airbags we put into minivans, we're still bombing and polluting and using tits to sell beer. Risky makes us all nervous, but things that suck without question, like the lack of nutrients and the abundance of sugar and GMOs and bovine growth hormone in the food we eat and give to our kids, are normal.

I set out again last summer to do one of the things I love best: tour the country on my motorcycle, reading poetry to people whether they like it or not. But I had the added mission of gathering folks together to risk romping around our own flesh memory in an attempt to find that part of ourselves that is just as green and willing to grow as the day we were born.

The sloping blades of boats
decapitation after decapitation
for 13 miles all I can see is my own death.
The single red strip slips just enough
for the sharp green tub to wiggle free
off the roof, smash my faring.
I lurch off the left side
jittery thumping wake up grooves
my neck snaps upon impact
and my brain splatters into the gravel.
I hate those fucking things
This funeral of canoes
The holy unbudgeable grudge from the suburbs
processing in SUVs and station wagons with trailers
to set up their campers
in the mountains.
They don't give a shit
they've got vacationing to do,
children to spawn.
No one can call them
a rickety hazard to all those behind.
I break through a crack
of bumpers at 80 mph.
I can hear my adrenaline trapped on speed
through the pulse of my teeth into my skull.
Finally birds exist again
I breathe in the yellow gray of tall
sweet farm hay rolls and silos.
But around a curve, up ahead
a truck hauls logs with an open back
each trunk wider than the span between my neck and my navel
We chug up the bumpy hill
I count the rings
and wait for the barrel of my chest
to get punched out. The first show and workshop of summer tour '06 at OutSpoken Books was small and dykey and loving. It was a homecoming. The road welcomed me and all my crazy ideas back in the hearts of strangers.

Beki said that she didn't realize how much effort she spent not thinking about abuse until she was in a safe space to let things come up as she pleased. She wrote:

I am from dark, dripping southern summer nights
front porch sittin' and fireflies in mason jars
I am waiting for that innocence to reappear
to tap on the shoulder of my ear with its dusky
peepers song.

I slosh into the diner in my wet rain suit, leaving a trail of muddy water behind me. I'm a woman in man's clothes. A single woman with a dripping helmet, taking up a whole booth during the lunch rush because there is not enough room to dry out my gear between two old men in cowboy hats at the counter.

"Coffee?"

"Yes, please."

"Know what you want?"

"No, I need a few more minutes if that's OK."

It takes a lot of effort to not sound like I'm trying too hard. I am always afraid of doing something wrong when I am traveling south.

She doesn't smile back, just turns away, focusing on the pad in her hand. Everybody else is staring at me. Fleshy white stares with flat light eyes, pink shorts and yellow raincoats or uniforms from the U.S. government — army, park ranger, cop. The air is thick with the boredom of kids who drink too much soda and adults who drink too much sweet tea.

C'mon guys, I ride a motorcycle! Isn't that cool? I want to scream. And it's raining. Like cats and crocodiles and I'm going way out of my way — even closer to sea level — to visit LA Rte 82 because I love the back roads of your swamped-out French mutt of a state that much! So much that I've sung out the poem I wrote about it at least 100 times and now I'm steering stubbornly toward it like it's freakin Mecca, like the sun will break through when I get there and lead me to the leprechaun's tasty pot as I explode in Holy Hallelujah. Don't you want to at least wink or say something like, "One hell of a day for a ride there, eh?" Or, "Where ya headed?"

The waitress slaps my coffee down.

"Can I get two eggs scrambled with cheese, home fries and toast?"

"Yup."

"You don't have rye toast, do ya?"

"Nope. You want bacon or sausage with that?"

"No, thanks."

"It's the same price.

"I don't usually eat meat."

She just wanted to hear me say that, loud, so everyone could hear.

I don't ask if they have provolone, but I do insist she brings me water.

"With a lemon!" I holler as she's walking away.

I'm crawled up under a bridge on LA Rte 27 on my pilgrimage to LA Rte 82, hoping the gators won't get me. It's not actually a bridge; it's a 15-yard piece of two-lane road over a place in the swamp where the earth is too wet to sustain the pavement so they put pylons deep into the ground. I've crawled in between the rocks and the support beams to get out of this ridiculous downpour. The bridge shakes when cars go over it and moves the hairs on the top of my head.

This isn't fair. There was wake behind my tires like I was water skiing and my feet were splashing through puddles. A truck passed and sprayed me with water that got in over the top of my rain collar. My visor and glasses were all fogged up so I couldn't see anything, but it's coming down so hard I couldn't just pull over anywhere — there is no breakdown lane — just swamp at the edge of the tarmac.

I do love the way the earth stinks down here though, like a whole bowl of gumbo in your mouth at once, salty crawfish broth and sweet corn.

It would be beautiful if I had something soft to lie on, or I wasn't so wet, or I was Tom Sawyer and I had nothing to do but whittle sticks all day. But I got to get to work by 7 p.m. in Austin and the rocks are jagged and raw through my soggy rain suit.

And it would nicer if there wasn't a ginormous bug that just crawled by my ass and I didn't keep hallucinating the ripples in the water as gator eyes peering up to get me or every flip of a fish as a swish of a hungry tail.

I'm afraid to write today. I need to get back into my body. I need to stretch and do some breathing. I want a safe bed to crawl up in. I want a safe lover who listens to me when I say go easy, that I don't have to make feel better if I get triggered or need to be angry and closed off. This work is really intense. It makes all my shit live just beneath my skin. The workshop last night was rough and I couldn't help feeling responsible for it.

I slept with dreams of evil workshops and I woke up feeling upset and drained and blocked. I wanted a hand wrapped around my chest. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to run away and be safe and hide.

Because I earned every poem / orgasm the hard way
stroking with sutures my heart to my cunt
loving my body more intimately
since she has wrestled me down with flashbacks and pleasure blocks,
insisting that I listen, let go control and trusted her to take me there.
Cause I turned it into a grant, childfucker!
What are you doing now?
Selling kiddie porn on the internet?
Sweeping up the popcorn that sticks in a XXX theater?
Huh?!
Trying to keep the old park man's hands
from patting your 5 year old's Osh Kosh a little too long
on the push up of the swing set,
wondering how long you can hold out
before your fingers find their way in there as well?
HUH?
Are you going to put your cock in her mouth to see if she likes it?
Maybe she won't scream either,
instead I hope she bites it off, like I should have.
I am grateful that god gave me something I can handle.
Something so I know
what to do when another feels their fissures more than their whole.
I am grateful, strong, pleased as fucking punch actually
that I know what hurt feels like,
that round swollen "oh fuck" that strikes my gut like a cannonball
and puts me out of commission to help myself.
I know how to stand when she shuts up in class
swallowing everything she knows
trying to shit it out like a cheap public school hot dog.
I know how to be soft and unmoving,
to sit next to her ready to catch when the knowledge
burbles back from hiding in her intestines.
I am grateful, oh lord
that you have chosen to melt my copper with zinc
to shine blades of bronze through the sun,
laughing and fighting and coming
our way into exhaustion and dreams of the next world we bring to the earth each day
that will make this one worth it
somehow.
I will always be the assaulted before the assaulter
my soul bouncing
always somewhere
intact.

You know all those sounds you hear in cowboy movies around the campfire when the moon is high and there are two cowboys and one says, "What's that?" and the other one doesn't hear it until it happens again, then they both crowd under the same blanket and try to talk themselves into going back to sleep?

Well, I heard those noises last night — the ones that float between a wild horse and a dog and child's wail. But I didn't have a cowboy to cuddle up to.

I also saw the biggest shooting star I've ever seen in my entire life. I was lying on my back finishing off my Wild Turkey, eating my dinner of cold jalapeno poppers, mozzarella sticks and thick-cut French fries when I saw it begin to stretch from the left side of the horizon. Halfway through I stopped chewing and said, "Holy shit — that's huge!" out loud. Then it continued on to double its size and knocked my breath out. I couldn't even think of a wish that big.

The night did start off rough though. I didn't pull in here until after dark and couldn't find the spot I wanted to nestle into. There is a hierarchy of campsites, some for RVs, some with electrical hookups, and "primitive" sites for people like me. The boundaries of the sites here were hard to determine and felt exposed. I didn't want to be so close to the bathroom that the light shone through my tent all night, but I didn't want to be so far away that I was an easy target. I circled around with my noisy motorcycle and headlight. I pulled over to check the map near the bathrooms one more time, and a bare-chested 50-year-old man in a brimmed cap hopped out of a dark green pickup truck and started coming toward me. I couldn't tell if he was the camp host or not.

"Are you looking for some friends?"

"No," I responded. "Unless you want to hurt me, then I have lots of friends that are on their way any minute now."

He kept on staring.

"With guns."

"Guns?"

It may have been hard to hear me through my helmet above the sound of the engine.

"No, no guns. I'm kidding. I was just joking because it would have been stupid for me to tell you I was alone if you wanted to rape me."

He stared some more.

"I know, it's late to come camping."

He kept on staring.

"OK, I'm just going to go find a campsite now." I kicked off and settled into the first site I found. It doesn't really matter if it has electrical hookups I don't need.

I could use some comfort but all I have is freedom.

I started off my day getting stuffed with blueberry pancakes and hot coffee by the bikers at the park where I'd camped for the night. All it took was, "Did you really ride all the way out here from Pennsylvania on those bikes?"

"Yep."

"Wow. That's the first time those words have ever come out of my mouth. I'm usually the one that has to answer that."

"Uh huh." The two beer-bellied fortysomething men in worn-out black Harley T-shirts and jeans were too busy fixing breakfast to be distracted by the same old dumb questions.

"Then I have to answer questions like, 'Are you really all by yourself all the way out here?' and, 'Where's the man that drives that thing?'"

Caleb looked up from the fire he was stoking under the blackened percolator. "You rode out here too?"

"Yep."

"By yourself?"

"Yep."

"What do you ride?"

"A V Star."

"You want some coffee?"

"Yes, please."

You can't win at solitaire. Even if the cards do open up and fall into the right place, you're still a loser sitting all alone in a world of beautiful people trying to figure out what to do next, how to distract your brain from the facts as you slowly die.

I've been playing a lot lately, like now in Idaho by Dworshak Lake while the moon rises full and plump over the pines. I am cloistered amongst unscented tea lights propped upon the bottles of beer I've emptied while losing hand after hand. Nobody but me will give a shit if I win, I'll see it as a sign that I can still do something right, that god's smiling on me.

The cards flow smooth like bird feathers evenly flapping, paced wind soft as razors. I bring the whirling slices together, folding them into one, and watch the stacks lose themselves.

If I was younger, I would have gone swimming. I would be floating right now under the stars, swishing in the deafening sound of the crickets, but instead I eat mozzarella and tomato on thawed hippie bread, smoke another cigarette, and get a little fatter.

I used to think it was just watered down red
I would rather roll you in my purple
boil you in my crimson
than let you creep into its folds.
I used to think she was just watered down red,
some thin strip of gauzy femininity
But I saw a sunset once,
and it was shocking.
Even green came out to greet her,
slipping in along the outer rim of secondary clouds.
Violet lay beneath her
prostrate on a cotton float.
And blue — navy to midnight —
awninged above
spreading and protecting her entrance
into departure.
I knew her, but couldn't talk to her yet,
like an ex's lover you spot at a cocktail party
through the fuzzy hum of wine glasses and cheese.
You know your meeting is inevitable
but it doesn't make you comfortable,
and you wish she weren't so beautiful,
her collar bones weren't their own damn necklace,
her mouth wasn't a strong, parting egg.
I wish she had never died within me.
I wish she hadn't betrayed me;
Soccer and girls' soccer
history and women's history
people yes, women no
rape victim virgin
victim victim victim
hole dagger
I tried to pretend she was just watered down red
for girls and all other things awful,
like whining and lace and unwhacked knees.
Sniveling instead of wailing
Riding instead of driving
Cleaning instead of fixing
I used to think it was all her fault.
But she is the moon's favorite lover
after silence.
Maybe I had a crush all this time,
and just didn't know how
to put on a bow tie &
pick her flowers.

Douglas Oltrogge is waiting in a white golfing cap on a stool by the bar with his own bottle of red wine. Big warm fuzzy Dougie. I haven't seen him since we did Red Bull and Jager shots together on his 21st birthday the last time I came through four years ago.

He spots me coming in, jumps up and covers me in hugs. My head gets lost in his arm pit. We look each other up and down all grins and whats ups and how've you beens when a cursing ruckus grabs our attention by the entrance. A woman has knocked over a table on her way in from the slot machines in the alcove.

"What time does that poetry crap start?" she asks the bartender, trying to regain composure as she lurches toward the bar. "I got to get out of here. I hate poetry. Itsstupid," she slurs.

I look at Doug and grin.

"I'm sorry Sam."

"It's all right. I've seen worse. Other people are going to show up, right?"

"They better." The show starts at 8 and it's almost 20 of.

"They don't have food here do they?"

"Naw."

"I better get something in me before the show starts. Anywhere decent to eat in this mall?"

"Naw."

I wander through the mostly deserted maze of glass and grating until I end up at the Montana version of TGI Fridays. I order the veggie burger and a beer.

I can't believe I am about to read poetry at a mall in Billings, Montana. Poetry in a goddamn mall. I'm not telling anyone back home about this one.

But Dougie made a special podium himself this afternoon out of scrap metal he trash-picked so I'm going to be nice about it. I just wish he hadn't told me the Lions Den was a "jazz club." But it is the best they can do since the Arts Space got shut down after almost two decades of being the coolest and only all-ages arts venue in town. And I do think it's a testament to the extra weight god put in his soul that he hasn't given up poetry, killed himself or moved out of town.

Fuck. What am I going to read here that they won't shoot me for?

I wolf down my glorified cardboard on a bun with an inch of yellow cheese, and I re-enter past the slot machines.

Our host of the evening, Thor, has just stepped to the mike to greet what has turned into a crowd of 20 or more people that look like they actually want to hear poetry, and a handful that are too drunk and comfortable to leave just yet.

Doug's friends seem nice enough with their grins and beards, but I still think I'm the only queer here.

I recognize Megan, the opening poet from the show Doug put together the last time. She'll start this off right. She's a total potty mouth. With every curse and reference to drugs and sex and sex on drugs I feel safer and safer. I may be the only homo, but I won't be the only one to say cock.

A man plays some guitar between sets, and Dougie takes the stage:

Who sez I don't moveLike John-fucken-WayneHave they ever even seena Cowboy as pop art as me?

When people say"Turn that shit off! —WE'RE TRYING TO SLEEP IN HERE!"

we love to respond

"this is OUR CULTURE!!!! — now go back to bed!"

I've had a couple beers by the time it's my turn.

"Good evening. Would you all do me a favor and move up a little bit closer here?" Nobody budges.

"No really, riding all day to do poetry in a mall is rough enough without having to compete with the sound of the slot machines." A large enough percentage of the crowd that has swelled to 35 obliges and clusters around the mike.

"Ah. That feels so much better. How are you all?"

I think we all have a good time as I romp through my usual medley of anger and sass and smooth, read a story and introduce my last piece.

"I'm one of those freaks that isn't fussy about gender, in terms of who I date or how I represent myself, and this is about one of those times I surprised even myself."

I start reciting "Natural," the poem about the first time I wore a strap-on while having sex with a woman. I close my eyes because I'm doing this one for me, and I don't really want to know if they are giving me that "well, now you've pushed it too far" look. Because I know that's what my job is. Like Amiri Baraka says, "writing pretty little jingles is not your contribution to the planet."

The bartender pours me a shot of Jim Beam and refills my pint glass for free, just like the one in the story I read. How sweet it is to put poetry where it doesn't belong.

Today I tell the folks in my workshop at Early to Bed that "the reason I do this is that our bodies don't come with clearly marked boxes of memory and sensation that say 'open only at the therapist's office' or 'this one is best used on your two-month anniversary.' And other people open boxes we may not want to have opened, but as Stacy Haines quotes in her book The Survivors Guide to Sex, 'If you arrange your sex life to avoid triggers, you'll end up with no room for your sex life.'

The more I get there first, the more I use the safer space of the page to approach them and get to know their contents, the more capable I am of navigating the spontaneity that is reality."

One of the participants, Selly Thiam, wrote:

"Gimme Monica. 'It's okay to scream,' she would whisper to me. And then I found my voice uncoiling like a snake, scaring me half to death."

A friend of mine asked me when I came back home a few months ago, "Are you feeling all healed up now?"

"Healing doesn't end," I replied. By the look on her face, she thought I was being fatalistic. But what I was trying to say is that right now I am not concerned with making the pain go away, for myself or anyone else. I am concerned with making the world around it larger and brighter, so we have something to grab onto when a large chunk of earth from beneath our feet falls away.

(www.samanthabarrow.com)

All reader comments are subject to our Terms of Use. By clicking Post Comment, you acknowledge that you have reviewed and agree to these Terms.

Name	please enter your name
Email (will not be published)	please enter a valid email
Comment	please enter a comment
Enter the security code on the right in the textbox below.
Security Code	please enter the code
	Join the City Paper Mailing List