Originally hailing from the East Coast, Alyssa Appleton is an actress, poet, and improv artist who now roams the sunny streets of Hollywood when she's not scribbling on scraps of paper or trying to get from one catering gig to the next. She is a lover of words and the emotions and ideas that become so tangible and visceral through text and speech. She is also a lover of wine, long walks on the beach and the occasional Parliament Light. Kidding about the beach. Seriously though... www.alyssaappleton.com

Three Poems (March 20, 2011. Issue 26. The SLAM & FLASH Issue!)

Brawling Love, Loving Hate
[An Ode to the Westboro Baptist Church]

I apologize—
I support heterosexuality,
homosexuality
and asexuality…
I support love.

I apologize—
I support God,
Allah, Buddha, Jesus,
Brahman, the Earth, Zeus,
Aphrodite, Juno, Apollo,
Diana…
I support belief and faith.

I apologize—
I do not preach hate.
I love my brother and my sister:
‘Gay’ is not a factor.
And far as I can tell, soldiers don't go to hell, but the Elysian Fields.
See the name of your god is quite irrelevant to me.

You are churning your humanity into a pollution
which poisons your children,
your children you breed into
pure loathing of most of the human race,
with a song on your tongue
and a smile on your face
and GOD HATES FAGS smeared on your houses,
your clothes, your posters;
branded into your flesh, making it boil, bleed and seethe.

Your skin must be covered in oil—
love bounces off it like water.

I apologize—
I support the soldiers
who risked their lives
so you can preach your hatred
with no fear of consequences…
I support freedom.

I’m sorry
that you don’t know true, unconditional love,
that you don’t understand forgiveness or shame or
needing someone.
That your family raised you in the captivity of hate.
In a constant fear of change
or of anyone different from yourself.

Red rover, red rover
we want you over here—
fighting on the front lines of peace, love and understanding.

Life is only breathing until you have something at stake,
so put something up for auction, put it in a box to burn...
I suggest you make that something your hate.

Please embrace,
embrace this thing called love.

If your god hates everyone but you
who wants to be a part of your club?
”No fags allowed.” “No fag enablers allowed.” “No Jews allowed.” “No soldiers allowed.”

What happens when you reach, “no girls allowed?”

or, “No boys allowed.”?

 “No one allowed.”?

Your heaven is going to be pretty lonely.

Reverie

I found myself in the empty spaces between you and me,
between the light being red and turning green.

My heart pumps the empty promises and collapsible dreams I left
in your pick up truck after the night we...
met.

The drive-in is still there—
two screens, a playground, two broken teens,
and a sieve filled with our time together sifting through like sand.

I’m filling the gaps in my memory with faded highway signs,
Camel cigarettes, and half-drawn boundary lines.
I always wanted to cross to be on your side.

The wheels on my car are slipping,
slipping through the years,
and I’m forgetting more and more moments: ones I promised I never would.

I am a survivor of unrequited love.
I was going to get the t-shirt, but it was yours,
like the air we shared before you knocked it out of me.

Our hands don’t fit together anymore,
and I’ve slid out of your jeans as easily as I slid in.
The first time you kissed me it tasted like the beginning

of the end.

Popping Your Cherry

You never quite forget your first time.

I’m taking about the first time you had power somewhere. Anywhere.
The first time you stood up for your best friend in a class of bigots,
the first time you cared about anything enough to stand up for it. Anything at all.

Or when you held something so delicate and knew you could break it with a
single, solid movement, or you could keep it safe forever.
And you realized how like it you really were.

How about when you went to college
and for first time you were excited about your reading list?
Then finishing “Letters to a Young Poet” and understanding
you had the power to change the world
or to just sit on your ass and watch TV.

Unrequited love? Not much more to say.

Remember the first time you drank so much you couldn’t manage
to get your key in your apartment lock, but somehow you did?
Then you made it all the way to bed before throwing up
into your sheets while simultaneously making the note
never to mix so many different kinds of alcohol ever again?
...but three days later you did.

The first time you watched a heart stop. Or saw one of your best friends from high school
lying in a coffin. Pretending it was a sick joke.
And knowing it wasn’t.

Remembering the “don’t drink and drive” assemblies that no one listened to
when you finally realized they were right, as you all stood together at the wake,
thinking maybe we should have all paid more attention in high school.

Wondering how you were ever going to pay your student loans
with the unemployment streak you had come graduation,
and then having several repeats of that night you threw up in your bed.

How about when you finally learned how to hurry up and wait?
Like awaiting the first time someone says, “I love you,” and means it. Because he never did.
And getting to give your parents the things they wanted and never had,
because they wanted to have you instead.

But most of all, awaiting the day you know how to be okay
instead of having to reassure yourself that someday the time will come when you are.