I W Y T W M

i want you to want me

a one-womxn spoken word experience weaving eight soul-fueled poems with vulnerable personal interludes. part performance, part community gathering, part invitation to experience healing and liberation through our creative practice and expression.

about the show

i want you to want me is a powerful, one of its kind, lyrical spoken word experience that is inspiring its audiences to find their own ways of rooting their individual, unique, and essential genius in radical self-love. this so that it may rise freely in them and emerge out to serve the whole collective through creative expression.

through undeniably brave and entertaining storytelling, bradley embodies the inextricable link between our healing and our creatorship. she manages this not just by revealing the impact of her traumas and intergenerational wounds, but by sharing her journey to alchemizing them—conjuring magic, miracle, and JOY through her creative/spiritual practice. our challenges, our pain, and our stories are our wisdom and our wealth—and they are offering us a path of truly sustainable holistic wellbeing where we reclaim our belonging, freedom, and unconditional love.

IWYTWM is a SOUL SPACE—a revolution of realness that is inviting all of us to re-member our inherent worthiness and our oneness with all beings.

it is a PAUSE that ignites a captivating curiosity that asks:

what happens when we stop waiting on the world to change and instead become what we say we value and believe in?

i want you to want me is a reminder… that our one true purpose here is to BE WHO WE ARE.

i want you to want me offers a living exploration of the creative process, revealing how our experiences, feelings, intuition, and imagination can become pathways to meaningful expression. the performance itself is an embodied demonstration of these possibilities, opening the door to facilitated conversations, panel discussions, and embodied workshops that invite participants to explore them for themselves. these offerings can be thoughtfully woven into classrooms, programming, and community gatherings, creating space to deepen our relationship with creativity through the wisdom of the heart, mind, and body.

reflections

from our audiences

“Book Love Bar had the honor of showcasing ‘I Want You To Want Me.’ This sold out show was transformative, haunting, uplifting, and achingly beautiful. Though the room was full, cat's words felt like you were the sole person in the room—all this was meant for you. And…it felt like a wave of collective community breath all releasing at once. Bringing us back to each other. ‘I Want You To Want Me’ is a battle cry to love yourself shamelessly…To say I loved this show is too small and simple a thing to say. I, as a woman, a poet, a community event organizer, was transported. And I am in still in awe. This is a show of generosity, honesty, realignment, and big big love..”

— Jessica Tharp, Book Love Bar Ypsilanti, MI

“i think this is what church is supposed to feel like!”

“this show was precious love to receive—potent medicine. thank you.”- S. Strivers

“i felt things shifting in me on a soul level.”

“every version of me that ever felt i had to be smaller to be loved came out, sat in the front row, and received healing from the words given to us all. a true reflection of what it means to be healed by another’s honesty in love.” - E. STEFFEN

”my goodness. the ENERGY. the MAGIC! i am… changed.”

“Wow! thank you. super powerful. super vulnerable. super heart intelligence! thank you for preparing yourself to be able to do that!”

“whew! deep emotion here. i am moved. inspired. i feel connected.” - Cait

meet the artist

cat h. bradley (she/her) is a revolutionary earth child and healing artist born, raised, and returned to the anishinaabe lands of the midwest, in ann arbor, michigan. all of her work is created to be in service of first her own and then our collective liberation and return to love.

her intention is that her work has an arousing and reWilding effect. through sharing her own truth of spirit, she hopes to connect others with their own, sowing seeds of desire that help them re-member and reclaim their deeper, more primal and brilliant nature—and freer ways of being.

cat is a poet, spoken word artist, contemplative somatic coach, and yoga and meditation teacher whose guidance is rooted in nearly two decades of devoted training, study, and practice. her integrated life/work pulse at the intersection of healing, embodiment, creativity, and spiritual practice. she creates and facilitates experiences that invite people out of abstraction and back into relationship with the body, using language, movement, sensation, reflection, and presence as pathways toward greater aliveness and self-knowing. her most recent work includes ‘i want you to want me’, a one-woman spoken word experience exploring longing, worthiness, self-wanting, and the liberatory practice of choosing oneself.

cat is a radically embodied weaver of energy, lyric, rhythm, pleasure, joy, flow, and soul love. she longs to make healing irresistible.

embodied workshops

rooted in the intimate relationship between healing and creative expression, these workshops invite participants to explore what it means to inhabit their own bodies, give voice to their experiences, and trust their own intuitive ways of knowing.

through poetry, breath, meditation, gentle movement, and shared reflection, we create space to feel, question, imagine, and connect more deeply with ourselves, with one another, and with what is most essential to us. these embodied experiences offer opportunities to enliven our healing and creativity—not simply holding them as ideas, but practicing them as ways of being and living.

welcoming to everyone, whether or not they identify as artists or have prior experience, workshops can accompany a performance of i want you to want me or be offered independently and thoughtfully curated around the specific themes, interests, or intentions of your community or group.

this work is finding a home in university classrooms, student organizations, arts programs, museums, libraries, and community spaces where folx are interested in unlocking and expanding their relationship with the creative process—moving beyond intellectual understanding to engage the intelligence, wisdom, and expressive possibilities of the body.

previous and upcoming offerings include workshops with the Urban Wordsmith Society at the University of Michigan and the Kalamazoo Poetry Collective, as well as an embodied workshop series with Dzanc Books in 2027.

THE little ROOMS TOUR

“GREAT things start in LITTLE rooms.” - ANDRE 3000

following FIVE SOLD-OUT/nearly sold-out performances across southeast Michigan—three at the North Star Lounge and one at Espy Cafe in Ann Arbor, and one at Book Love Bar in Ypsilanti, i want you to want me is growing beyond the rooms where it first came to life.

now rooted in the sacred ground we’ve grown from, we’re branching out and bringing this movement of healing, creative expression, and human connection into little rooms and to communities across the country.

PREVIOUS SHOWS

08/14/26

IWYTWM @ESPYCAFE , ANN ARBOR MI.

04/11/26

IWYTWM @BOOK LOVE BAR , YPSILANTI, MI. PRIVATE PERFORMANCE.

05/31/25

IWYTWM @NORTH STAR LOUNGE , ANN ARBOR, MI. TICKETS: SOLD OUT!

12/28/24

IWYTWM @NORTH STAR LOUNGE , ANN ARBOR, MI. TICKETS: SOLD OUT!

09/07/24

IWYTWM @NORTH STAR LOUNGE , ANN ARBOR, MI. TICKETS: SOLD OUT!

performance +

workshop inquiries

let’s explore what we might create together!

MORE COMMUNITY EXPERIENCES

💫 workshop: RE-MEMBERING THE WAY

when/what: an embodied poetry workshop exploring migration through memory, identity, belonging, and transformation using somatic practice.

where/info: Kalamazoo non-profit Advocacy Coalition. 315 W. Michigan Ave. Kalamazoo, MI 49007. TUESDAY NOVEMBER 3rd, 6-8p. brought to you by the Kalamazoo Poetry Collective and generously sponsored by Vine Neighborhood Association. FREE, however space is limited. REGISTER HERE.

💫 event: poetry open mic (host)

what: this community gathering is founded and co-hosted by myself and my sweet poet soul friend Forrest Hejkal. Our dear friends at North Star graciously provide the place (and the scrumptious vegan eats!) for us each month to continue this co-creation that is less traditional open mic, and more community healing + evolution… REVOLUTION through creativity. this is RADICAL HEART SPACE. open to all. JOIN US!

where/info: North Star Lounge FIRST WEDNESDAY OF EACH MONTH! 7-10p. free (although you will be encouraged to enjoy some food and drink to support our venue/friends!)

💫 event: poetry workshop/open mic

what: this open mic is hosted by my friend, poet extraordinaire Tara Hardy. Tara has decades of experience writing, teaching, performing, and creating community around poetry all over the country! each first friday she generously offers a free! generative workshop with prompts and dialogue that stimulate and inspire! afterward, open mic!

where/info: Book Love Bar (THE cutest and coziest bookshop in our land! by fellow poet Jessica Tharp). first friday of each month. workshop begins at 530p, open mic starts at 7p. free (although you will be offered the opportunity to support our venue/friend through donation). SECOND FRIDAY OF EACH MONTH!

SUPPORT US

want to be a part of raising us up?

to support bringing IWYTWM to more little rooms around the country through donation, PLEASE GO HERE

ALREADY BEEN TO A SHOW?

please share your reflections or get involved with the tour in other ways BY GOING HERE