Become a Member for exclusive perks and videos: https://bit.ly/ButtonMember
Raine Ngo, performing at Honey in Minneapolis, MN.
Help us decide which videos go up on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ButtonCurator
About Button:
Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.
We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry’s audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.
Last year I watched my brother have LASIK surgery and before this he had Sent me four different videos of their Procedures saying it's kind of cool but It's also kind of really gross mind I Hate needles near my eye and my brother Is the same way so we don't know why we Both started watching them anyway as I Was watching I imagined the flip on his Eye turning into a cloud drifting slowly Sinking his iris and aperture waiting For the bloom his cornea the soil of a Garden the needle to welcome the Leftover eye tissue was just to waste Seven years ago and my grandfather Passed away in Vietnam I realized I Didn't know his Vietnamese name just the Title of grandfather caretaker Chain-smoker with a sound of rasping for Laughter I imagined the cicadas calling Telling him peace is with him pieces With him the night he died I was the one To relay the news to my siblings my dad Said call her your sister she'll pick up When you call and I told my sister to Call Johnny he'll pick up when you call And when he burst through the door and Embraced both of us his body was shaking I felt his tears run down my arm and he Said you two are the most important Things to me before the surgery my Brother and I didn't talk very much we Don't get very emotional Once I stared at the body turning blue
And felt a pulseless arm and didn't Think to call him while standing there In that peace peace room I felt my Vision leave me I imagined my Grandfather falling in his apartment Alone the dust settling around him Myself in a bathtub I imagined my Brother on the floor of his bedroom a Piece beside him a line of white a Credit card and closed my eyes and I see My partner facedown in winter snow Congealed blood on the car An empty windshield a grey beanie Turning crimson when the lasik was over My brother said he didn't feel anything But saw the needle and watched the Blurriness wipe itself clean as the World came into focus over and over Again last week our thought of texting Him just to make sure he was live this Week he takes Me first [Applause]
