Darkness grew
Inside of me.
A black web
Of scathing scars
Attaching quite aptly
To my livelihood,
To my womanhood,
Dangerously, destructively —
A toxic creature
Pulling my body
Down, way down.
Into an abyss
I feared had
No exit sign.
Darkness thrived
Inside of me.
Without logic,
This gruesome thing
Wove a warpath.
Leaving not a trace
Of light or peace.
Further we fell,
My body and my spirit.
Fearful and entangled
In a bloody mess —
Enduring
An open-ended chapter
Of gruelling soreness.
Darkness lived
Inside of me.
I can’t recall
A time
When it didn’t
Take my breath away.
Toss my hope away.
Push me over the edge.
It spoon-fed me
Shame and distress.
Hoping I would be
Too full up to disturb
The comfort
Of our anti-symbiosis duress.
Then, darkness died.
Finally.
One sunny spring day.
It wasn’t an easy
Demise.
In its absence
I woke up slowly —
Groggy and perplexed.
A temporary fog,
The welcome successor
Replacing sadness, bitterness
And angry clenched fists.
When murk subsided,
A clarity and poignant resolve
Birthed.
A deep wisdom for survival.
I felt un-burdened and lighter.
We rose — body and soul,
From that abominable abyss.
Like twin Phoenix birds,
Free and floating,
Back into the humane rays
Of a painless dawn.
// a poem about my experience with endometriosis //
Author: Kate March
Email: [email protected]
Author Bio: KATE MARCH is an American multi-hyphenate artist and entrepreneur based between Hong Kong and New York City. Ms. March is a performance artist, director, writer, choreographer, speaker and producer. She received her BA in Performance/Choreography from Connecticut College (Summa Cum Laude) and her MA in Choreography from Middlesex University in London (Highest Honours). Globally acclaimed, her art has been described as visionary, interactive, provocative, and powerfully bold. Ms. March is the founder and creative director of the all female international creative collective I AM.
Through her work with I AM, she not only develops innovative performance concepts and redefines dinner theatre, but also continues to perform across the world in a variety of unique projects in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, China, Australia, the Maldives and America. Recently, Kate March was nominated for the “Revolution Award” as part of the annual local theatre “HKELD” awards. In 2016 Ms. March was selected as the Artist in Residence at Hotel Vagabond in Singapore where she spent a month creating a new piece of site specific performance work. Notably, her most commercially successful work An Evening of Meat was performed in London for a 10 weeks run in March 2018 at the Vaults Theatre.
Outside of I AM, Ms. March explores her artistic voice through passions for performative monologues, dance on film projects, theatre production, and academic lecturing. In 2015, Ms. March delivered a TEDx speech in Hong Kong which launched a series of inspirational speaking engagements. In addition to speeches on love and uncertainty, her most recent commissioned speech was about pleasure and was delivered for an audience of 700 people at the 2016 Hong Kong ORGASMO event which supported the HK Arts Foundation.
Ms. March’s dance on film work UNDER | WATER featuring dance, fashion and dynamic cinematography has been selected for several Film Festivals in 2017. In addition to directing, producing, and performing in countless movement based concepts, Ms. March has also written, produced, and directed several evening length theatre pieces. One of which particularly premiered to great acclaim: Love Pings (HK Premiere October 2015). Love Pings is set to tour in Asia in 2017 and is set to premiere in NYC by 2019 (lovepings.com).
Finally, Ms. March has also acted as a part‐time lecturer of movement improvisation at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts from 2013-2015 where she remains a guest lecturer for both the BA and MFA programs
Link to social media or website: http://katemarch.com
