May Poetry Slam Winner and Open Mic Night at the HOFF

This month at The Hometown Olathe Family Farm there was an intense clash of feminist prose that arose. The all female line up was packed to the brim with talent! The open mic night portion of the evening had a beautiful elegance and diversity, ranging from portions of song lyrics to book snippets being read. The talented and sassy Izzie from Pink Blazer Co. graced us once more with her hosting skills, and left the room laughing to tears. Though the night was bittersweet with Mindy McVay’s absence, who sadly was stricken with a dangerous blow of poison oak. She managed to greet everyone virtually for a moment or two with a smile and cheerful start.

While all the women in the lineup brought their best, as is always the case, only one can be the winner. This month that title belonged to the young Riley Grace. A truer dark horse this editor has never seen! Only 19 years old, Riley came up to the microphone and shone with talent and passion. The following is her winning piece:

“I Erase Myself Through the Phases of the Moon”

Full moon

I am the only girl in my engineering class. It’s only high school, but I have already learned to walk faster when the streetlight is out. In class the boys say “I don’t understand why women were so upset back then.”

I am carving crescent indents in my palms because fingernails have more courage than my throat.

The boys in my engineering class are just that, misogyny disguised as a joke. They feel safe in a group of strangers. I don’t want to do a team project, but I still make a catapult. The boys make failure. I design progress but get talked over. I’m glaring at the exit because the little boys can cry wolf but god forbid a girl is audible.

And the little boys who cry wolf will grow into men who domesticate dogs while their wives look after their sons. They will use those dogs to chase down wolves, and they will raise those sons to believe that a wolf’s howl is a siren call.

Their daughters will steal away to sink their hands in the mud. We are the wolves, little girls dressed up as muddy sheep to disguise ourselves from the hunters’ bullets. The men don’t recognize girls at midnight because they only know us in day. We are creatures of darkness, untamable. Yet men try anyway, and when they can’t stop a wolf from howling they will block out the moon.

The boys in my class engineer streetlights that go dark if a wolf approaches. And I walk through the door to sit as the lights cut out.

I am illuminated in the glow of the exit sign.

Waning half moon

I learned to walk out when the boys were upset. I am disguised as a joke.

They, a group of strangers, fail the wolf.

The boys will domesticate wives after they call the girls dressed up as bullets only creatures.

Men stop a wolf from howling.

The boys walk to the door.

I am the exit.

Waning crescent moon

The boys understand women. The boys are a team. The boys make progress. The boys steal a bullet.

The girls stop howling.

New moon

[pause]

Waxing crescent moon

The boys don’t understand. The boys are just misogyny. The boys chase daughters of the moon to cut out the glow.

So believe me, this is no longer an erasure.

The girls are learning to distance from the exit.

The girls are the wolves that men tried to hunt to extinction.

Teeth bared and claws sharp, howling at a moon we can’t see yet.

But we know is still there.

Riley is a poet, author, and singer-songwriter based in Kansas City. Her work focuses on wanderlust, nostalgia, nature, and societal commentary. She goes to college at Macalester in Minnesota where she's studying creative writing and environmental studies.

Her work can be found at https://rileygaikowski.wixsite.com/riley