keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel

I haven't been inhaled
in long enough to know that it comes around least expected and often ill-timed

arms broad chest tight wrap against all of me
I am a child astride his lap
I am a woman near his mouth

In the silence of the blue hour sitting on a park bench, a fleet thought How nice it would be to kiss them
I shake my head, shake the thought out, shake the moment free of desire.

His voice is the low rumble of second generation californian: quiet, secure, warm; Would it be okay if we kissed? I am out of my reverie and our lips, tongues, mouths silence our words and our nocturnal yearnings pull desire like putty stretching it looping it back on itself.

My body knows how to be touched, especially after a draught. Now, I am pulling scent from my skin, the nearness of the encounter is lingering on my t-shirt, in my hair.

In the exchange, the choice of silence for secrets, we chose silence.

All of this leaves me very shaky, hungry, lonely for touch. I find honey when searching for gold and I am satisfied.

Durt

Deep soil
I dig to the root.

Marilyn the fyck out
queer until morning and the sun comes

Up with you between my sheets

****

I am shaking

Beyon(d)ce

I am back two years
Marco, Oakland, cocaine. He was the hottest man in the club, he was also the bassist in the band that was on stage.
Evidently when you don't give a shit people notice. The set ended, he was at my elbow, his Peruvian drawl slipped into my mind, you want to party?
Present graveyards are quiet places. The crows are full of themselves, the jays are too; I hear a bottle drop. The wind is gentle and warm. The sun-dappled grass is thin, overgrown. Propped on my elbows, jean shorts cuffed, ankle boots kicking into the air I am resplendent in this moment.
I worry about magic. The thought that it is possible for someone to use it against me crosses my mind. There is always a chance that the veiled threat: be careful when you leave personal belongings with a witch... they might not be so understanding. Is more open then closed.
He had secrets. I found a pair of panties in the bottom drawer of his dresser. I wasn't snooping, I was putting his laundry away. They were tied with a cord or ribbon, it was voodoo. This didn't deter me any more than the fact that his ex was filing a restraining order against him.
I was going to be the one who showed him the potential of love.
Now single I am steadily dating myself, my work, my books. I know more than I should about the poison of shame. It is kerosene, I am an ember.
Again Marco
His voice is velvet, I am a python and he pulls rapture from my stone heart. Later, he uses me silently taking his pleasure from my body. I, am transported in the moments of violence, extract the sin, distill the feeling of wanting and transpose all of that to Beyonce.
Again Marco one year later
I find him again
He is thin
We do drugs
I leave
All of my questions answered
Time and perspective

Land of Matched Sox

I feel a sense of pride when I do laundry and am not missing any socks.

Today the sun is soft and the wind has a hint of the coming crisp nights. The dog days drag along and I am languid, silent. I shop for fall: burnt orange, deep turquoise, white; notebooks, index cards, books. I move in to focus.

I see the echo of your voice in narrow shoes and have secrets that I whisper to shop mannequins. Their open eyed stares tell me tell me to exercise and wear more red.

The otherside

Tell me about grammar, how language as we know shifts consciousness.
More, I am very efficient. Less, my akin is soft.

Reading the diaries of both Anaïs Nin and Jean Genet I am thrown back to a time of familiar drives. The hunger for companionship strikes me lonesome for my pen, for paint, for the drug of a lover's touch. I am unarmed by my solitude.
This work that has traversed nearly a decade is decadent, bold, relative to my experience. What else could it be?
I work now as a cocktail creator and am doubting my shift of location. Seattle had friends, family, familiar routines. Here, I know almost no one except the shadows of memory. Save the transgressive shift of perspective I am still alight with the memory of my last great love.
I have perspective and my innocence in a locket. A darling asked me to marry him, it's my third proposal this year. I will marry all of them, none of them, one of them. I bought myself a ring and married myself again. I did it first at nineteen and again this year at thirty four.
Unpacking boxes I am amazed at how long I've been closeted as an artist. I make solitude a lesson.

In the land of ultra

Ultra ultra ultra ultra
Becomes a mantra that replaces the other one.
I am battling myself these days. The times when my hormones hack my brain and I'm left dispassionate, disassociated, gasping for breath.
I rode out today for a few hours before work. How incredible to hit the back county roads and just open the throttle. I have to watch myself; safety is a concern.
I have come to realize that my hormones have cycles of their own. Every three months there is an especially epic dose of hell. I also feel like I have become a queen of the masquerade. I hide and find refuge in the solace of books, the whir of the washing machine at the 24hr Laundromat.
My phone is fine. Evidently I didn't pay the tab. Usually they text me multiple times alerting me to the end of my service date, this time was different.
I have a whole lot of fuck you in my head right now. That bothers me. I do deeds to overcome my inner fierce impulse driven nature. I pray to the stars and lick my fingers clean.

phone again toast

do you have a spare because I have something like eleven extras

I am beyond words today and pretty shook up, yesterday, last night threw me for a spin

not lonely only very much so alone in a place where I do not want to be alone

it is a little bit dark here and though the moon does shine and I have made my way home

I feel no comfort in these bones.

I bought groceries. If I had a lifeline I would use it. I tried earlier which is when I learned my phone is toast. I wonder how many days it's been. I was thinking I was here all alone, instead I stand on shelf collecting dust shake the dust oh my bones oh my bones

Fall like Buckets

After work last night I went dancing. It was an incredible amount of fun, it was also very hot so I stepped outside. An incredibly beautiful rastaman and I took a walk, smoking the tail-end of a joint.

Beautiful stranger who does not know me, I, a beautiful stranger as well, and do not want to bring you home after having known you twenty minutes.

Walking along the tracks I panic... I know how this situation can end. Why does everything always have to end with physical pressure.

I use words I don't want to make out with you

Walking back to the club to deposit the beautiful stranger where I met him, I say that I have to go back because I told the DJ I would be back and I am a person who sticks to my word.

Alex Rodriguez it's a jackal

My friend the DJ was out front smoking the tail-end of a joint as I rolled back on the scene. High-fives and fist-bumps were tossed around the verbal check. In that moment I became the woman who checks back, who doesn't just leave with a stranger, that if I do and I don't come back, something is not right.

I chilled out for a few songs and danced with this lovely lady. Our bodies moving close and closer yet never touching, creating and releasing desire. When I left a moment later, my backpack slung over my shoulder, I flashed a peace sign at the DJ and dipped quickly, quietly, and unobserved down the stairs and into the stars.

Walking home I was juiced up. Between the pot, the beautiful stranger, and dancing the line with a lady adrenaline was still pumping. The stars and half-moon helped calm my nerves but I realized a lot in those moments. How easy it is to be mistaken for something we are not. How difficult it was in the situation with the beautiful stranger to extricate myself from him safely, without making him feel ditched (on this note, yes I know that's what "I get" for hanging out with a stranger and smoking a joint, because we all know that is code for fucking right?). I went back years in my mind to different times when I was young and would have happily allowed the beautiful stranger into my home and then be honestly surprised when he was more physically assertive than I was comfortable with.

That situation is what I call an Okay-Maybe. Or a situation that I am not 100% comfortable with when I suddenly realize what I have done and that I am in trouble because I am physically compromised. In my head I say, if you let this inevitability be okay then it's not rape. Okay-Maybe is the compromise between a black-eye, broken teeth, ribs, bruises and just not fighting.

My ex always thought that an okay maybe was a one night stand.

A one night stand is different. It involves a mark, an intention on both parties, is consensual, and has an agreed upon scope of what's okay to do to one another. Consensual sex from both parties with safety measures (prophylactics) and fun for all is not at all an Okay-Maybe.

things can happen

those in between moments

my thumb freshly shorn

deep clean slit across the tip

a real slice

crimson copper salt
drain
an offering

unplanned, yet not entirely unexpected

There is so much in life that riddles the brain. The complexity of being an organism that lives, functions by impulse. The recognition of that makes me agitated and I feel ill at ease in my skin. Frogs voices chirburt, bull frogs in the lillies make honks, the crickets tell me it is warm out, that the plants are growing, the soil is soft under my boot in the flood plane. It is good to back on soil. I have missed it more than I know, more than I can even allow.

I am familiar to myself, yet a stranger in the warm dark, watching the impulse drive repeat nature of my being with both shock and at times awe.

The memories I unearth in this mine of mine are interesting. It turns out I have a thing for unicorns and collecting sticks, pieces of wool and feathers, nests, odd rocks; I also like office supplies, so much so that I made a specific point to buy an entire box of document envelopes in order to conduct my affairs.

The undoing is what really destroys me. When I just sit and undo for hours. I watch netflix or scroll websites and read stories by people who tell them. It somehow nullifies the crickets. I can't seem to have both even in thought. As I write about being distracted, the feeling in my chest starts to spin inward and I listen to the critic, whose voice is loud enough to demand my full attention. I physically no longer hear the crickets outside my window. Undo is not a verb.

High Jinx

I consumed a ridiculous amount of coffer today and feel like a memorial monster of veins. This consumption was not for naught. The day of state permits, licenses, fees, new banking systems put into place, and library card established.

Taking care of all of the basics feels good, adult. I have a voice in my head that likes to remind me that I am not doing enough; days like today help me to tell it to back off.

My apartment is a disaster! papers, clothes, books, jewelry, technology are in giant jumbled heaps. I love it, my mess. I know it will resolve. I appreciate that I am cheating on my future ocd  clean-bot.

I am still somewhat confused as how to feed myself. I am good with juice, smoothies, salad and quinoia; meals remain amorphous.

From the trenches with love.

Pulse connect

I was in California twice in the last week: Once for business; once for love. Both left me shaken. At a friend's memorial Saturday I remembered laughs and held onto forgotten ideas.
What was perhaps most interesting to me was that people have opinions on how I live my life. What I should have done, how I am in life.
Thank you man for letting me know. Next time I need some shoulding I will be sure to hit you up.
The next time I don't put the effort in or just turn and burn or shake shake shake the dust I will be sure to get the fuck up and apologise to you for having a cunt and giving more of a fuck about me than you.
In other news I rode well over a thousand miles this week, called man a sissy, saw friends and lovers, booked my very own hotel room, and registered for classes. Again, thank you for letting me know how i should live my life, but there is one person outside of me who's views I take with salt and you dude are not him.
If I haven't seen you yet, I am looking north and hope the road is smooth.
**2**
This is what I say to the homeless man in my mind, next time you feel the need to compliment my fierce sexual spiritual energy
I will remark on the infernal waft of stank that rolls off of you, your meagre possession of stature, and my remarkable sportsmanship for choosing not to press the heal of my boot against the carpels of his hands.
Because, I draw in on my Gasper, I am a lady of anointment.
***3***
Instead I say nothing for the last time
****4****
Heading north on CA 128 out of Calistoga, two men in sneakers riding harleys overtook me at a stop. I saw them later at the memorial and one of them introduced himself and let me know that we'd ridden together. You see I scarved passed the both of them on the straightaway. I had intimidated his bro.
He was riding like a sissy, I said before entering the saloon.

I have a juicer and know how to use it

In my very own kitchen
refrigerator shelves of kale and carrots and cucumbers
counter of blender, juicer, espresso maker

this is my home
I dance without clothes as the sun sets

Today I saw a friend
Tomorrow I start work
Days before yesterday I saw an old lover or two

I am cooking quinoia
and drinking a beer

I am not wearing socks
as I listen to the radio

I know all of this
my heart shakes yes

Long goodnight

This week is one for record books

I am listening to crickets

And ate gummie bears for snack

Sprawled out across my bed, I rub the top of my foot up my bare calf: I shaved my legs today; listening to the hum of a distance between my legs, I am home.