i looked to see what movies were out and i saw/ that they made a film/ of for colored girls

which i may
or may not
go see
i'm not sure yet
but
it did make me remember something
i had forgotten

ntozake shange
she taught at the university i attended
and
i signed up for an acting class she taught
i wasn't really wanting to act
so much
i just wanted to study something with her
and
blah blah blah
i'd had intro to theater
where we did some improv and shit
i figured i could handle it
although
the thing that i do
i think i already knew
wasn't acting, exactly

so i show up to class
and we do improv
and i'm supposed to be standing at a bus stop
and
when it's over
she uses what i did
as an example

of business
(little physical shit you do to fill in the space)

and i think:
well
maybe that's good
or maybe that's bad
but it's not nothing
so
cool

but then she starts talking about her philosophy

how she had a girl once
who was supposed to be playing
downtrodden
and she just wasn't believable
cause
ya know
she was all like
upper middle class
and pampered
and shit

so the way
ms shange
got her to the place she needed her to be
for the performance
was to improv

a gang rape

and then
you know
they had to calm her down
for about an hour
but she never came across all privileged
anymore



and it was all i could do
to stay in the room
until the end
of that
day


i ran
not walked
to drop that class


acting
wasn't an art
i wanted to suffer for
and
i figured i
really knew
all i
needed
to know
about
ms
shange