Me

I don't think anyone blogs anymore - this has become a home for my poems. I have recently started participating and competing in Slam Poetry contests in Seattle. I love it. Here is a poem I wrote last night after a competition.



Hi, let me introduce myself.
I am Chelsea. Chelsea Nelson. I don't have a middle name. Just Chelsea.
Im not Jesus or Mother Theresa or Gandhi
Im Chelsea.
I’m a woman and I’m gay.
I’m a dreamer and a believer.
I’m a daughter and a sister.
A lover and mother; a mother to a dog but a mother nonetheless.
I'm Chelsea.
I'm a victim and a survivor. A fighter and a thriver.
And I'm a poet.
My words are the heart of me.
My poems are the art in me.
I need to stop hiding them like a teenage boy hides pornography.
I'm Chelsea.
I am mostly happy and mostly positive.
Please, don't tell me I'm not a real poet if I choose to write and speak about joy.
Gandhi said to be the change you wish to see in the world and Michael said look in the mirror and make the change
And I felt like they were both talking to me.
Too bad I started to listen when I was 25
Ben Harper said that he could change the world with his own two hands and when I heard that song I thought that I was singing. It wasn't. I can't sing. But I can dream.

I'm not Dr. King but I have a dream.

I dream that when you see me, you see me. Not my sexuality or the strength of my perceived spirituality. Or, I dream that you do see those things but that it doesn't matter.
I dream that when I see you I don't see that youre black or white or yellow. Or I dream that I do because that makes you you but I dream that it doesn't matter because it doesn't. At least not to me.

I mean it matters that there were and still are slaves and that gays can't get married everywhere in this country and it matters that in Kansas its being proposed that a police officer doesn't have to help a homosexual if homosexuality goes against the officers religion.

I'm Chelsea and I have a dream.
I'm Chelsea and I have more than 15 trillion cells that makes me me.
They work together every second of everyday to make me this way.
They make me move and make me want to improve.
Cut away the color of my skin. Cut away that I like women. Cut away that I am a woman. Cut away that I used to be a practicing Mormon.
I have bones and blood and a heart and mind
Keep on cutting, you'll never find my soul

I'm Chelsea.
I have two terminal parents and siblings that are best friends
My real best friend was killed in a car accident

I am Chelsea
the perpetual lover of life and the person who can look on the bright side of most situations
but not because I haven't felt pain. So don't suggest it.
It's because when I was cuffed to a hospital bed after trying to die I gained an appreciation for the air
I was so glad that I could breath and I couldn't believe how pretty everything was

I am Chelsea
The always smiling girl that was dying behind that smile
until one day, I wasn't.

Because one day I decided to be the change I wished to see in the world. To be it. To talk about it. To write about it. To live it. And everyday when I look at the woman in the mirror, I say, 'hey, can we make a change? Can we be a little better? A little kinder? A little more like the person you were born to be?" I don't always get it right but I do sometimes.

Yesterday is gone and right now is the present so I would like to present to it, me, Chelsea.
An ambassador for life and for things that are good and just so I'm not misunderstood, I want to make clear that I know that there is bad.

I know that there is homophobia and racism and sexism. I know that people die - literally and metaphorically.
I know that girls are getting raped by their fathers and their brothers and by strangers too and that mothers know about it and do nothing because they don't know what to do.
I know that that boys are getting raped too.
I know that there are people living on the streets and that some have nothing to eat.
I know that people live without a tangible love or without a tangible anything beside their own body which doesn't feel tangible at all.
There is so much pain and sadness in the world.

But I will talk about the good.

Because I'm Chelsea, the change I wish to see.

Life is like the Seahawks winning the Superbowl. Or it ought to be

Real life is like Seattle when the Seahawks play.

Or it ought to be.

Check it – the city turns blue and the number 12 is in all the windows

Flags fly from cars and poles –Everyone at work is wearing their gear, no matter their role

Before game time we cram in a bar, far from the comfort of our homes

We want to watch with other fans or be in the stands

We want to feel that 12^th man energy

It doesn't matter who you are – teacher, preacher, doctor, lawyer, ex con – when that game is on there is an instant bond

Like during the 9ers game my homeboy Omer who is gay hugged a guy with a duck dynasty t shirt on after a touchdown

Differences go away as soon as that ball is kicked, friends are made quick

We cheer together after a good play and pray together - sometimes literally –when there is a bad play

And it is that way until the clock strikes ZERO for the fourth time

Real life like is Seattle when the Seahawks play

Or it ought to be.

Real life is like Seattle when the Seahawks win the Super Bowl

Or it ought to be

Fans in the streets for hours in the freezing cold

Almost 1 million people blanket the streets of downtown – young and old

Everyone wants to be apart of the biggest party in town, clowning around yelling SEA- HAWKS with strangers forgetting about that thing called stranger danger

Because fellow fans aren't strangers. They are family. Brothers and sisters.

We all wait to see the team and beam with pride with the family we didn't know doing who is doing the same thing because our team, now they’re getting a ring

Yeah. Life is like Seattle when the Seahawks win the Super Bowl

Or it ought to be

But what if it was real life we rallied for instead

Like wearing jerseys for people that helped those without a bed

What if we paraded to end war instead of that game

What if the people who taught got the fame

What if our city turned pink on Fridays to support cancer patients?

Or we crammed in a bar to cheer for the progression of immigrants

What if we spent hundreds or thousands on tickets to different events?

That provided assistance to elderly or paid a single parents rent

What if the flags that flew stood for equality?

With the hope that everyone would have the same rights as me

And I'm a gay woman so I don’t have the rights as some – but that isn't the point.

What if we cheered and prayed together for humanity as a whole

And what if self love, peace and opportunity was the goal

What if the Super Bowl has fun and then after it was done we could party in the streets because we were all living the life of our dreams

What if we won together and lost tougher but after a loss we were still a team

What if we would fight together – not fight each other but fight for each other against heart break and war and what if we didn't keep score. What if we all knew deep in our core that we’re connected. All of us.

All of that seems better than the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl. But none of that makes us dance in the streets.

Real life is like Seattle when the Seahawks win the Super Bowl. 

Or it ought to be.