Aaron Ambrose performs "Pandora picks Aaliyah"

OUTSpoken Queer Poetry Slam and Open Mic's mission is to create a dynamic and safe place for queer performance artists t...o develop and share their creative voices publicly through collaboration with each other, establishing bonds with national queer communities and their straight allies, and promoting outreach and education to Albuquerque's artistic and local community.

OUTSpoken is sponsored by ABQ Slams and Albuquerque Pride.

Pandora picks Aaliyah

and this song takes me back

to what now seems like youth

into Saturn return

and you

and that crappy old car radio

with the broken cassette

and all that washboard

and all that open space

and all that dust

kicking up into our skin

into that tiny mountain cabin

with the candles burning hot

we would fuck

like the earth was opening

and then primp for the bar

in the flickering light

while the radio crackled and hissed pop songs

we drove steep dirt roads

into the night

you kept a baseball bat behind your seat

you held my hips while I danced

this song takes me back

to this need-heavy

old as the hills

butch femme lust

revenge

and desire

and that old truck

that broke your arm

you kept a rag stuffed in the hole where the gas cap should've been

you had to hit the starter with a metal pipe

to get it to turn over

god, I loved watching you pop that hood

climb in there

and beat that engine

it made me wanna turn you over

and take you back

you pulled femme shine from my stone

like brilliant choya flowers from Santa Fe sun

like prayer under my breath

I still ask for your forgiveness

for my own anger

made by breaking

drove our screeching

how much I've learned from us

how much I've changed

how together we were

fume and flame

combustion

but we also climbed into the woods

and sat in wild silence

we watched spiders spin webs

and we laughed at birdsong

but you, like Aaliyah, are gone now

you're just fuming memories

and flaming spirit

kickin' up dust once in a while

when music takes me unawares

and turns me over

and takes me back

like Saturn

returning

to you.

[applause]