Tiny Victories

I was depressed and couldn't write a word because this is my digital vault.

I've heard stories
told in whispers
over crisp linens

the words follow the folds
and end up heard by my toes
burrowing into the bend of my knee

I find them
those crumpled secrets
in the basin after I bathe

I press the secrets
with a hot iron
and see
the tongue's ink run blue off the edge
down the drain
out of the
bed

Forging a foothold

Wane dreams in
washed out color
Woke my stiff limbs

I am distant from my body
Its knots caress lines of bone
I feel the delicious wind

Restoring my senses
I shake the dream
Eyes open

External stimulation

Everthing's heavy
Eyelids and shoulders
Droop

My ears catch whispers
Of silent nods and lifted brows,
"She's not telling us everything."

I mean to stand with
lifted spirit
Do something, anything
Rings my ears, the bells are tolling

I eat two slices of candy
And sit down again
Wishing I had a blanket.

Counting Felt Fish

I woke to flat gray skies. It feels right. All these cool cloudless days have felt like vestiges of California. Today will be an inside day, one of those days that not everything has to be a done, a day to mull. If I had running shoes and shorts, it would be a day to run.

I have three pairs of pants here: work pants, two sizes too large; new boot cut Calvin Klein jeans; aqua-teal skinny corduroys, that are a shade bluer than my turquoise piped cowboy boots, also here. I also have a hunter green woolen skirt and a pair of black tights. Some girls may put black tights into the pants category. I am not one of those girls. Three T-shirts, two tank tops, a black turtle neck, two long-sleeved cashmere sweaters, and a cashmere T-shirt, a large quantity of both socks and underwear made their way into my case as well. Pajama bottoms and slippers are welcome luxuries. There was a crushing assortment of cosmetics, tooth care products, hair clips, notebooks and pens in my bag which I decided to keep; I managed to bring a small silver pot of trinkets, strings of unworn beads, a pin from my mother.

My glasses, laptop, camera, old phone, new phone, and requisite chargers are all stowed away.

There are a few other odds and a lot of loose ends.

Around all of this is the not saying, not mentioning the big obvious elephant sitting behind their computer keyboarding all of this: I have my life and the breath in my lungs and the view from my eyes and the thoughts in my mind that belong to me.

I put down my pouch of tobacco yesterday. It makes me happy because I smell good and my skin thanks me. I want to be beautiful as I age, not look like a turtle, not smell soggy.

Stand Tall

Shoulders under ears
Spine straight
I sit, knees crossed
Making a list.

I feel wrung and wet and timid
I've been making phone calls
and hearing the anonymous voice
you are more than the sum of all of those experiences

This morning I was gulping for air and searching for solace in a small pouch of stones
I found my father's gift
among the chrysocolla and quartz
my heart burst, relief in his enduring love

Years back, more than a dozen
he came to pick me up from a bad scene
I was kicking and screaming that I wanted to stay

Advocacy

I am not cold

nor am I hungry

I am at a complete loss

haunted by my own devices

I wish I had managed to pack another jacket,

pair of pants, shoes

My heart breaks over the loss of my teddy bear, the necklace my father gave me when I was sixteen, my work. This is not a pint a night of Ben & Jerry's kind of despair.

My mind reels and I feel I've misread cues, have used poor judgement. I am terrified of what's next. I have no idea what disasters I've created in failing to function regularly and properly. I am afraid that life will no longer accept me and that my efforts will be scorned. I am so afraid of the monster in me that I've been feeding. I can hear its voice and feel its hot breath in my gut.

Decidedly burned bridges

A few mornings ago I rushed the French press. Scalding coffee spewed over my forehead. I am lucky my eyelids were not blistered. It's embarrassing being the woman who has facial burns.

If you see me and notice a few nicks, I have been through an ordeal or two this year.
I walked away again yesterday from the man I love. I listened as he drove off, leaving me stranded yet again.

You see, I am lucky.

Restful bones will be on the woman.
My heart is not tattered nor am I battered. Worn thin by capitulation, I find that tumult may come, and notice that despite me the dawn breaks over the ridge and pulls the warming mist in eddies.

All the Buddhas in the World

Silent statuary
Garbled diction

There is no line to render
The life I could've lived
A memory, resonant as the song birds waking chorus

On the other hand

there is the National Guard
and I am considering that it may be time to serve my country

or at least work off my student loans
so I can stop avoiding those phone calls that I didn't know I was getting
because I changed my number

all this and more

I think I will turn to god

When we allow ourselves to be separated because of strife, turmoil, or suffering we lose the very thing we are fighting to save.

Counting back blog posts 8 years and 285, 286 counting this, and I start to think that perhaps it's time to do a little editing for material worth salvaging and wrap it all into a tidy package.

My mind has become a place of great beauty: I have chosen to see every interruption as a miracle, because it is a moment to reflect and regain my presence. What am I doing that is so important anyhow?

Longing for youth and folly and endless nights chasing dawn with a rolled cigarette hanging loose from parted lips, I look back.

squalor

I've been working in filth. Removing dog urine saturated carpets in a jumpsuit, respirator, and black gloves is far from glamorous, but it pays bills and I am learning how to labor.

As I think toward my future I try not to bite my nails, rip my hair, burn my skin. Instead I scour craigslist in search of a career. The pragmatic side of me questions historical Chaya; the enigmatic me says faith based living has me here. But where is here. I question my commitment to myself. These are big questions. I wonder why I never completed the final two months of fashion school or spoke to the people who could help me pursue my career as an artist or how I failed to become a professional horse trainer. I am wondering if I have a deep seated bend towards sabotage. I certainly hope this is not the case, that the latent tremors of nostalgia speak to my desire to create rather than destroy.