"Fruit" - Get Lit - BNV '15 Semi-Finals! (Rhiannon McGavin & Jessica Romoff) 

they say you must eat the fruit before it spoils when you can take her hesitation and bury it back into the soil -while she can still call you daddy -better sip her from the vine while she's learning to count bruises -before she can spell the word statutory before she knows what a protest tastes like -when you can snub out her voice like cigarettes -you must spy and pluck and peel before the first freckle shadow of rot appears at the bus stop -his eyes drooling down my sixth grade thighs you are the reason i am not allowed to walk home alone -they know what broken dolls taste like -so easy to trace the spiderweb fractures and shatter you open he says -where have you been all my life? you stutter, he says -no boy could give you this you giggle, you trick yourself that it's flattering -when my friend's dad pulled me into the den at a family barbecue to ask me my bra size -when he drops loose change and tells you to pick it up he appreciates your school uniform when he says you're so mature for your age -you feel it snap on your tongue like stolen bubblegum -come sit on my lap baby girl all his favorite bedtime stories are about princesses who stay with the dragon -red riding hood who runs away from her family -he wants to be powerful you are his favorite ego boost -my mom made me start wearing turtlenecks in the summer made me disguise my twelve year old lilac shoulders during the harvest -we can't be tangerine and stawberry too enticing, too sun ripe -i cut out all the sweet parts of me hung them to dry, preserved them for someone who wouldn't look at me like i was his next meal -like i'm a deer and you can't wait to hang my head on your mantlepiece -something to brag to your friends about over beer tell them how i whimpered when you shot me how i really thought you loved me -he wanted tender meat served raw but we were born cutthroat -teenage girls have always been bold -teeth in braces and manicured claws -when the bone hits your hymen you get back up you want me, cuz you think i'm tight, cuz grown women don't put up with your shit cuz you're having a crisis, cuz you wanna crack these lovely bones -i'm not on the best seller's list -i am erasing all your inkmarks -i am the match that burns down your library get used to the taste of ash -you said i was the light of your life but i am wildfire -he never stops talking good thing teenage girls are so shrill he says -where have you been all my life? -i wasn't born yet he says -no boy will give you this -at least we're both children -if i am fruit then you're allergic -i hope i'm an invasive species poison ivy and hemlock -go ahead -grow up -take a bite i hope you choke don't you know the prettiest roses have the biggest thorns it's a defense mechanism but really we are not -fruit and fiction -or even fierce and flame -we shouldn't have to pocket our pulse you should afford us that dignity innocence is only innocence if it's protected we are human you are cannibal

"Where have you been all my life?" I wasn't born yet. YASSSS

"Innocent is only innocent if it's protected"

2 favorite poets

my two fave slam poets. nice.

my two favorite poets working together. I love it!

"you giggle, you trick yourself that it's flattering" hhhhhhhhhhhhh

I. . . This one is really sad and especially hit me really really deeply

My two favorite poets in one video

so powerful. love this.

Omg I have seen both of them in different slam poetry competition, but I have never seen them together. They are amazing together.

My two favourite doing this together.

my two favorite poets❤

I absolutely love both poets!

Is there a quieter version? Its kind of hard to understand what they were saying.

I thought this was gonna be funny... I was wrong... this was deep...

That was deep💯

This is amazing

Jessica is from summer break

can someone write there words I can't here some of it

It feels like it’s been long since anyone has said anything,the last comment was 2 years ago I write these poems on my walls and learn them I’m suffering trauma and so are most girls like me

Really Really good i wish i could be brave to do this ...

did he say meow at the beginning