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Paye the Poet, aka Salt & Pepper, aka So Paid (born Sara Marie Paye; February 8th, 1990 –) is a whistler of tunes on great mountains, especially in the wilderness, especially in the dark, beneath the waning crescent moon. She is a brazen cowgirl and can pivot like Elton John’s tiniest dancer. She is a friend and a confidant to weirdos, a mystery-keeper. 

Early Years

Paye the Poet was born at Good Sam’s hospital in the Northwest urban area of Portland, Oregon, to Smokin’ Joan and Dennis Paye. Her parents had met at a Portland Trailblazer’s Basketball game in the late 1980s while Dennis was working there as a businessman. He asked Joan out to dinner, and she declined. Yet Joan eventually came around when Dennis remarked, “Whaddya gotta do? Wash your hair?” Joan has short hair now. Paye, the Poet, was born to her when her hair was still long, and upon her birth, her mother exclaimed, “My angel.”

It was a snowy Thursday evening when Paye was born, and David Letterman followed a Cosby Show marathon that night. Though Dennis had a weak stomach and was easily grossed-out, he braved up and caught Paye from her mother’s womb as she exited. Dennis has since caught Paye on her way to get a tattoo, cheating at board games, and sneaking out to kiss boys. 

Paye learned that if she were born a boy, Joan would have named her Wiley Coyote, and Dennis would have named her Jon Vincent (after Vincent Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers). 

Growing up in suburban Portland in a small town called West Linn, Paye had a view of three mountains from her backyard: Mt Hood, Mt St Helens, and Mt Adams. Every morning before school, Paye watched the sunrise glow halos upon these three peaks and imagine summiting each if for no other reason but to “go tell it on the mountain.” Tell of what, you might ask? Tell of the grace that taught her heart to fear. 

When Paye was 15 years old, she went through cardiac arrest due to anorexia nervosa… which was undoubtedly the kick-in-the-pants she needed to be well again. Paye would have these hunger visions, hallucinations, and vivid daydreams about who she wanted to be and where she wanted to go, and what she wanted to do when she had the strength. 

Adolescence 

Eventually, Paye did regain her strength and perhaps at the same exact moment was asked by her family to move from the Pacific Northwest to Las Vegas, Nevada: Sin City, baby. There, she became the royal Queen of the Youth Council of the City. She held court in a run-down leisure services center where she led a small group of 14- and 15-year old’s through their high school career. Sometimes, Paye and the misfits would cut class to attend city council meetings. After, they would always end up eating peanut butter pie out at Dick’s Last Resort, where they were told that their moms were now available on DVD. 

Unsuspecting, Paye met her best friend walking home from school one day. It was a hot August afternoon when Anna Karime Perez-Aleman found her in that fevered moment, and they both saw an ice cream shop. Anna taught Paye Spanish, and Paye taught Anna phonics. Paye and Anna are still friends today. 

Education

Paye could not decide which university to go to upon graduating high school. So, she did what any Vegas kid would do and wagered a bet. If Stanford won this particular football game, Paye would attend a small and private liberal arts school outside of Pasadena. If USC won, she would go there where her Aunt Catherine Claire Christine Crowley taught Occupational Therapy to all the big bad football players. 

Paye ended up going to the other school: Azusa Pacific University. There she learned that the most honest, most educated, and most important answer of her life would be… “I don’t know.”

Psychotic Break

Paye embarked upon a mission to see another mountain in 2011. The mountain she wanted to summit was none other than the slightly Mt Fuji in Japan. She successfully traveled there to engage in tsunami relief and teach English. Blessedly, it was Paye that got schooled more than anyone. 

She returned to the United States with severe jet lag, depression, and memories of a calculator that once killed her. Paye checked herself into a psychiatric hospital for six weeks to be evaluated for Bipolar Disorder Type I with Psychoses NOS. 

Discovery of Poetry

It was the only language that made sense to Paye’s newly fucked up brain.

Poetry Career 

Paye has been published with Funicular Magazine, Uncomfortable Revolution, Wordgathering,com, The Ice Colony, and The Stay Project, among other online locations. She has also founded a writing service called Pivoting Poetry. She invites patrons to choose a topic, choose a price, and she will write a one-pager for them within one week. Pivoting Poetry also has a Poetry Contest annually each summer. The poems collected from that contest are assembled into a chapbook and delivered to hospitals to encourage people through their darkest wildernesses beneath their personal crescent moons.