#milwaukeepoet — Public Fediverse posts

Here’s a clip from my performance tonight at Showcase Onstage 💛

-Allēna

Here’s a clip from my performance tonight at Showcase Onstage 💛

-Allēna

I wrote this at the poetry workshop today. It’s called the “14 school commandments”.

“14 school commandments”

i. 

be a juggernaut in class. (home was school and school was home, a haven away from my rich parents who I didn't know were rich, and the wealth of my mind could carry its own weight. at least there I was doing something right.)

ii. 
run a protection racket for foreign exchange students. (at home I was powerless. at school I was powerful. my mother called me selfish more than my name, and there I could be someone, something worthy. I could be something worth caring about.) 

iii. 
make friends from the wrong side of the tracks to run fades on ne’er do wells (on the subject of power and love, my friends were more my family than my family ever was, and you never went against my family.) 

iv. 
make popular kids owe you favors (my mother taught me how to search the world with a hardened gaze for treasure, for leverage, for the exits, this served me well.) 

v. 
befriend security guards (where love cannot serve you, rely on fear and awe)

vi. 
have zero fear and utmost faith in your own skill (I was never unafraid, but if I didn't ask and fight for what I wanted, nothing good would happen for me, at home OR at school.) 

vii.
form a gang of oddballs (they were kind. they cared like me, but heavy was the head that wore the tarnished crown and nothing ever made me feel completely at peace)

viii
have a hot boyfriend (my parents always said “a good relationship or marriage should make you feel like you have the better end of the deal” but everyone ended up losing and I just ended up hollow and desiccated, lost in my head and exhausted because I had no idea how to just feel, just be, and I still don't)

ix.
throw legendary parties (I didn't know how to stop running, stop performing, stop… I had given up then, I imploded, and in the implosion I found my way, ambling through the rubble)

x. 
be tight with the “mean” vice principal (she reminded me of myself, I think, alone at the top)

xi. 
know everyone (because that's how you get somewhere, right?)

xii. 
take a legitimate interest in people (I just wanted to feel like SOMEONE cared, anyone)

xiii
act like you're on speed all the time to such an extent that you get the nickname “adderall” (why couldn't I ever slow down? was it excitement or was I simply afraid that if I quit, I would feel the sadness that constantly threatened to envelop me?)

xiv. 
do as I say. 
           (not as I do.)

-Allēna 8/5/2025

#MilwaukeePoet #ourPoetry #poet #queerPoet

I wrote this at the poetry workshop today. It’s called the “14 school commandments”.

“14 school commandments”

i. 

be a juggernaut in class. (home was school and school was home, a haven away from my rich parents who I didn't know were rich, and the wealth of my mind could carry its own weight. at least there I was doing something right.)

ii. 
run a protection racket for foreign exchange students. (at home I was powerless. at school I was powerful. my mother called me selfish more than my name, and there I could be someone, something worthy. I could be something worth caring about.) 

iii. 
make friends from the wrong side of the tracks to run fades on ne’er do wells (on the subject of power and love, my friends were more my family than my family ever was, and you never went against my family.) 

iv. 
make popular kids owe you favors (my mother taught me how to search the world with a hardened gaze for treasure, for leverage, for the exits, this served me well.) 

v. 
befriend security guards (where love cannot serve you, rely on fear and awe)

vi. 
have zero fear and utmost faith in your own skill (I was never unafraid, but if I didn't ask and fight for what I wanted, nothing good would happen for me, at home OR at school.) 

vii.
form a gang of oddballs (they were kind. they cared like me, but heavy was the head that wore the tarnished crown and nothing ever made me feel completely at peace)

viii
have a hot boyfriend (my parents always said “a good relationship or marriage should make you feel like you have the better end of the deal” but everyone ended up losing and I just ended up hollow and desiccated, lost in my head and exhausted because I had no idea how to just feel, just be, and I still don't)

ix.
throw legendary parties (I didn't know how to stop running, stop performing, stop… I had given up then, I imploded, and in the implosion I found my way, ambling through the rubble)

x. 
be tight with the “mean” vice principal (she reminded me of myself, I think, alone at the top)

xi. 
know everyone (because that's how you get somewhere, right?)

xii. 
take a legitimate interest in people (I just wanted to feel like SOMEONE cared, anyone)

xiii
act like you're on speed all the time to such an extent that you get the nickname “adderall” (why couldn't I ever slow down? was it excitement or was I simply afraid that if I quit, I would feel the sadness that constantly threatened to envelop me?)

xiv. 
do as I say. 
           (not as I do.)

-Allēna 8/5/2025

#MilwaukeePoet #ourPoetry #poet #queerPoet

This was my poetry performance from this Monday.

Long overdue footage incoming! This is “alexandrian aphasia”.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPP33USgYDD/?igsh=NjNpd2ptYmd6dzFp

“alexandrian aphasia” originally appeared in our zine make me your villain. 

-Allēna

#milwaukeepoet #Milwaukeepoetry #performancepoet

This was my poetry performance from this Monday.

Long overdue footage incoming! This is “alexandrian aphasia”.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPP33USgYDD/?igsh=NjNpd2ptYmd6dzFp

“alexandrian aphasia” originally appeared in our zine make me your villain. 

-Allēna

#milwaukeepoet #Milwaukeepoetry #performancepoet

Hi, everyone. My name is Peri.

I wrote this today:

I'm the result of two generations of fire, at least 
my grandfather saw horrors he likes to laugh 
about and won't talk about directly, but 
he replicates them compulsively when 
he's stressed out or bored 
my mother does the same thing and laughs 
about it too, but watches me for 
the same signs, the same crazy, like a ticking 
time bomb although often she is the cause 
of the insanity she fears so deeply at her core. 

I want to say that the shows I like 
hit too close to home, but they 
play out like my life did for twenty four years. 
pyromania burned through my mother's 
line, held my grandfather prisoner. 
my mother had her own compulsions, 
not just fire. her hands, cold as death, were 
always busy, always searching, always 
grasping for another handhold, another tool, 
another soul, another project. her hazel eyes
knew every entrance and exit, how to find
and get leverage, and she was plagued by 
the nightmares, too. under the constant 
stress of a dying husband and warring children, 
her mind held her hostage for eighteen years, 
forcing her to build fortress after fortress, 
light fire after fire, see threat after threat,
run and run. 

and she saw me as a blackened mirror 
of herself, a shell burned through. 
she followed me like a firewatcher, 
as though I was a bomb primed to explode. 
my compulsions are not hers, but the terror 
is the same. the mechanism is the same 
or is similar enough to be indistinguishable. 
but I am here to quench the fire and the thirst
and I might be crazy but I'm here to do things 
differently, so watch me if you must 
but be prepared for me to
douse 
your 
flame

-Peri 9/25/2025

#amwritingpoetry #milwaukeepoet #poetry

Hi, everyone. My name is Peri.

I wrote this today:

I'm the result of two generations of fire, at least 
my grandfather saw horrors he likes to laugh 
about and won't talk about directly, but 
he replicates them compulsively when 
he's stressed out or bored 
my mother does the same thing and laughs 
about it too, but watches me for 
the same signs, the same crazy, like a ticking 
time bomb although often she is the cause 
of the insanity she fears so deeply at her core. 

I want to say that the shows I like 
hit too close to home, but they 
play out like my life did for twenty four years. 
pyromania burned through my mother's 
line, held my grandfather prisoner. 
my mother had her own compulsions, 
not just fire. her hands, cold as death, were 
always busy, always searching, always 
grasping for another handhold, another tool, 
another soul, another project. her hazel eyes
knew every entrance and exit, how to find
and get leverage, and she was plagued by 
the nightmares, too. under the constant 
stress of a dying husband and warring children, 
her mind held her hostage for eighteen years, 
forcing her to build fortress after fortress, 
light fire after fire, see threat after threat,
run and run. 

and she saw me as a blackened mirror 
of herself, a shell burned through. 
she followed me like a firewatcher, 
as though I was a bomb primed to explode. 
my compulsions are not hers, but the terror 
is the same. the mechanism is the same 
or is similar enough to be indistinguishable. 
but I am here to quench the fire and the thirst
and I might be crazy but I'm here to do things 
differently, so watch me if you must 
but be prepared for me to
douse 
your 
flame

-Peri 9/25/2025

#amwritingpoetry #milwaukeepoet #poetry

I went to a fantastic open mic for the first time with Emerson last night and performed my piece “lagomorphology”.

Here’s the clip:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO-GMzqj510/?igsh=MTRpZHVodHFsZWVhcg==

And here I was, being a fucking dipshit before the show:

It was a great time. I hope you enjoy the poem!

-Lazarus

#milwaukeepoet #openmic #performancepoet #poet #spokenwordpoetry

I went to a fantastic open mic for the first time with Emerson last night and performed my piece “lagomorphology”.

Here’s the clip:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO-GMzqj510/?igsh=MTRpZHVodHFsZWVhcg==

And here I was, being a fucking dipshit before the show:

It was a great time. I hope you enjoy the poem!

-Lazarus

#milwaukeepoet #openmic #performancepoet #poet #spokenwordpoetry

I just wrote this. It’s called “hurricane lazarus”, and it’s inspired by a conversation I had with a very powerful soul I met yesterday.

I was born in an otherwise normal middle of june at the tail end of tornado alley. I’m a gemini, scorpio moon, half air, half water, all storm and
tremendous force. say what you want about astrology, scorpios, or geminis, I’ll tell you what I know. I learned as a young child why they name storms after people.

perhaps some seal or some levee broke in an unseen place upon my birth, because death would dog my every step
and I swear on my father’s grave that hell
followed after that.

nine months after I was born, I got sick twice,
one week apart. the first virus took out my
immune system, the second took out my heart.
but I was a fighter. they hooked me up to a
machine that would breathe for me. one dose
of the meds they gave me would knock
my full grown, linebacker sized father out for
ten hours because I refused to go quietly,
like a category five hurricane slamming into
a coastline during the worst season on record.
I ripped through death and pain so goddamned
hard that death had a near me experience.

then came a sepsis scare. then a stroke. then
near starvation. each time I wailed a hurricane,
hundred fifty seven mile an hour straight line winds.
death learned to hate to see me coming.
all before I was three.

I learned to watch the storms that mirrored my
soul, learned to love the wind and the water,
find peace in the howling and the sickly blue green sky. in 2000, two tornadoes tore through
my city, devouring chunks of the skyline. there
are still signs and monuments there if you know
where to look.

nobody thought I’d live to see eighteen, twenty one, twenty three. they bet against me, calling me
crazy, plotting against me, betraying me when I needed them most. I learned to become inevitable, to channel my force into words, into song, into low pressure systems of my own.
so their plans didn’t hold.
their levees didn’t hold. they cracked under their
own weight and were washed away in the storm
surge when the people didn’t evacuate in time.

when I was twenty five, a boyfriend called me
what I was, a barely contained hurricane.
I lived with a lover when I first moved to
milwaukee who worked on emergency alert
machines. I learned the names of my surroundings when storms
rolled in with the same passion in which I
learned about her, the same way I studied the
storms when I was younger.
and I wonder if someday
someone will name a hurricane after me.

-Allēna 9/22/2025

#amWritingPoetry #hurricanes #meteorology #milwaukeepoet

I just wrote this. It’s called “hurricane lazarus”, and it’s inspired by a conversation I had with a very powerful soul I met yesterday.

I was born in an otherwise normal middle of june at the tail end of tornado alley. I’m a gemini, scorpio moon, half air, half water, all storm and
tremendous force. say what you want about astrology, scorpios, or geminis, I’ll tell you what I know. I learned as a young child why they name storms after people.

perhaps some seal or some levee broke in an unseen place upon my birth, because death would dog my every step
and I swear on my father’s grave that hell
followed after that.

nine months after I was born, I got sick twice,
one week apart. the first virus took out my
immune system, the second took out my heart.
but I was a fighter. they hooked me up to a
machine that would breathe for me. one dose
of the meds they gave me would knock
my full grown, linebacker sized father out for
ten hours because I refused to go quietly,
like a category five hurricane slamming into
a coastline during the worst season on record.
I ripped through death and pain so goddamned
hard that death had a near me experience.

then came a sepsis scare. then a stroke. then
near starvation. each time I wailed a hurricane,
hundred fifty seven mile an hour straight line winds.
death learned to hate to see me coming.
all before I was three.

I learned to watch the storms that mirrored my
soul, learned to love the wind and the water,
find peace in the howling and the sickly blue green sky. in 2000, two tornadoes tore through
my city, devouring chunks of the skyline. there
are still signs and monuments there if you know
where to look.

nobody thought I’d live to see eighteen, twenty one, twenty three. they bet against me, calling me
crazy, plotting against me, betraying me when I needed them most. I learned to become inevitable, to channel my force into words, into song, into low pressure systems of my own.
so their plans didn’t hold.
their levees didn’t hold. they cracked under their
own weight and were washed away in the storm
surge when the people didn’t evacuate in time.

when I was twenty five, a boyfriend called me
what I was, a barely contained hurricane.
I lived with a lover when I first moved to
milwaukee who worked on emergency alert
machines. I learned the names of my surroundings when storms
rolled in with the same passion in which I
learned about her, the same way I studied the
storms when I was younger.
and I wonder if someday
someone will name a hurricane after me.

-Allēna 9/22/2025

#amWritingPoetry #hurricanes #meteorology #milwaukeepoet

This was my Tabi Po performance.

I slammed “sin eater”.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO4dM1Dlc1z/?igsh=bnR2Y25zZGRjamd4

“sin eater” was originally published in my zine when the lighting strikes me back.

-Allēna

#milwaukeepoet #Milwaukeepoetry #poet #queerpoet

This was my Tabi Po performance.

I slammed “sin eater”.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO4dM1Dlc1z/?igsh=bnR2Y25zZGRjamd4

“sin eater” was originally published in my zine when the lighting strikes me back.

-Allēna

#milwaukeepoet #Milwaukeepoetry #poet #queerpoet