I am screening for AFI’s Film Fest and came across a documentary that won’t leave my mind, which is good because certain things just aren’t supposed. Plus I got an amazing poem, of course, from my girl Jessica Care Moore, that shoo me the way a good dictionary word does. So this is for the GEMS girls (http://www.gems-girls.org/aboutus.html) and Jessica.

GEM is Truly Outrageous
by t.tara turk

I would wake up on Saturday to the tunes of a lawnmower, a distant plane flying away, and the beat of my own anxious heart
Ready to face the world
At ten years old
Poured myself some Cheerios in a too big bowl and turned on the TV
And sang along
“GEM is truly outrageous, truly truly truly outrageous…”
Teenage rockstars with purple and blue hair, strumming guitars and saving the day
What more could a girl ask for?
Three years later, I work a Guess mini skirt, encased my chunky thighs in panty hose, begged my mother to wear her silk shirt and smoothed the short side of my asymmetrical hair style
For boys
Yet I was a prude
I didn’t go all the way
Or anyway
I liked the honeymoon phase
And had no idea what the marriage meant
Wanted to be a woman but also a GEM, a purple haired pop rock stair who would save the day
My feet in too many points of a time line
I hit puberty
I went on to survive
No teenage babies
No STDs
More than graduated from high school, college and grad school
Yet
That was then
The GEM of the 00s are the girls who hit the honeymoon phase with boys like the Titanic going under
Ran into grown ass men running game and didn’t know how to escape their bullshit vibrations
Gave their heart and gave up their golden boxes
Walked streets, all streets, for men looking for a little head on relaxation at the end of the day
These girls had no GEM to sing along with
They had homes they ran from, abyss filled argument holes where people made them adults before they even had breasts
Or periods
Ran to the Player in the Caddy at the bus stop
The one who always has a spot in the “family”
The one who loves with the fist in the hidden parts of the body and never the face
The one who has a Wife in Law just waiting for a buddy
The one who knows about the quarter in your shoe
When you ran from this man, your heart misses him and skips beats
So close to the edge so far from SATs
There’s a rumor that there’s a savior lady with an English accent up in Harlem who can give you a bed and a way to find your dreams
She’s been there
She knows
She’ll give you a cigarette and ladder to the real world
But you have to climb it
My detour had me miss this song
This show wasn’t on Saturday mornings
My GEM song wouldn’t even be in the top 100
But this lady’s GEM truly saves the day, has the right beat, a melody to deflect Caddy in the booming system