"No Gravity," by Brian Omni Dillon

My favorite poem from the 2012 National Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., was Brian Omni Dillon's "No Gravity." This is an awesomely well-done video performance of that piece.

"For Eliza (No Gravity)"

Performed & Written by Brian Omni Dillon

Shot & Edited by Sean Gallagher

Music by Thom O'Connor
www.IntangibleCollective.com

"No Gravity,"

By Brian Omni Dillon

For Eliza, No Gravity

The tenth girl after you is how I found myself saying these things. Her hands are smaller. She smells different, but her eyes are planets, like yours. I am reminded of what it was like to first love you every time her mouth opens. Every inch of it is a mural in neon. A symphony of paint and torch.

The ninth girl after you is prettier than she needs to be and she knows it. She'd only kiss me in the corner and still slash out the bulb with a switch of black hair. She doesn't deserve me.

The eighth girl is pornography. She's clit-ring, cocaine, bar-fight. She’s the filthy you. The one desperate to save us in our last months sharing a home. Her face is trampoline, her chest is an airbag. She got as much respect in the end as you did.

The seventh girl after you is a decade my senior. She's a bright light in a mineshaft. Her face is a poppy plant and she kisses me like she’d swallowed the still-living wrist of an addict. We are elephants feasting on bush meat to survive the drought.

The sixth girl after you is a totem. An east-river biplane on the fourth of July. She always wears black like shes seducing the scythe. Always on the way to another funeral. Her body is a comic book. Her skirts are wreaths of flames. You loved her poetry. So does everyone else.

The fifth girl after you is Egypt-thick. She is jeans to the ankles in the bathroom. She is vomit in the bedsheets. She sucks dick like her life depends on it and it might.

The fourth girl after you is an angel. She didn’t mean anything by it. Like you, shes in love now. She's square-peg, square hole. Like you, she wont answer my texts.

The third girl after you a mother, like you are now. And I don't flinch and sputter when she shows me photos of hers like I do with photos of yours. She and I never slept inside of one another. Never argued playfully about how early I could teach her sons to ice skate. It was wine, it was sloppy, it was stupid and it was temporary.

The second girl after you is a panther punched against the wall by the crack of lighting. A white light artery in the midnight’s arm. She is so small and dirty I wear her under a thumbnail. Every inch of friction in our laps was another syllable in a goodbye note. I am the suicide calling the car crash an accident. I'm the whiskey breath and the wheel. I am the indent her teeth left in her bottom lip. I'm a reason to cut yourself.

The first girl after you was a cake-shaped wound in your thigh. She's the reason your sons were named incorrectly. The reason they won’t have my hair. The reason I won't be invited to a wedding that I'd just ruin in a spill of bourbon. Your sons are beautiful. Your eyes are planets. I'm a fucking spaceman. No gravity. Your eyes are planets. And your sons should be grateful for them.

2011 © Brian Omni Dillon

Photo by Jonathan Weiskopf 

Brian Omni Dillon

Brian Omni Dillon is a performance poet, author, educator, and organizer from New York City. Currently a professor of performance poetry at New York University's Gallatin School, he is also the fourth-ranked slam poet in the world and a writer-in-residence at the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe.

In 2011 Dillon finished in second place alongside his Nuyorican teammates at the National Poetry Slam in Boston, Mass. His debut novel "Eat The Rich" was published in the winter of 2011 by DefWords Press. 

He has served as a guest host and featured poet on the world renowned Indiefeed performance poetry podcast numerous times. In his free-time, Dillon is an aficionado of youth ice hockey, designer lighting and bad music.