little bird

I wish I would be able to say, now things are behind me, I am whole and well and the stars are my comfort. The stars are my comfort, that, at least is true.

In this land of sobriety I am looking at myself and addiction. I am looking at the past and how it tends to claw its way into now. 

I got a call from california justice system yesterday. They found me. If they can find my current number, why didn't they call or contact me before?

It was two years ago, in october. I was driving home from work and ran a red light. The ex was waiting for me to go to the store so I could prepare dinner, so he could eat. I was listing in my head: milk; meat; veggies; I ran a red light. It happened. I was pulled over, ticketed, and left to go to the store. The thing was that I couldn't tell him and as he controlled every minute of my time, I couldn't go to court. I did try, the day was filed incorrectly, it was a saturday. I made a second mistake and didn't take care of it before leaving the state. 

The past came forward. The lady on the phone, you owe a grand. Today. How, is this information only now getting to me? it doesn't matter. I will deal with it as I deal with everything.

I was distraught. I ate my feelings in cookies, milk, cereal. I was on the bus pushing back the flood of memories and emotion that threatened to spill out and onto the dirty rail, cover the raucous teenagers laughing. I remember laughing, I think, biting my lip until I taste iron. 

I am full of holes. I have been burning again. Branding my arm in a circle of hope, I tell myself it is decoration, it is a symbol of recovery. I believe the words and listen to the cars spin tires up the highway.

*** it is six am, I wait for the bus, coffee in hand, wonder if I look like a trick waiting in the lamplight***

Dust Bunnies and Recycling

It's done. Me. I am finished. Have you ever grown so tired of your life that you lash out at the very foundations on which it's built? I seem to be lost in a reliquary, no defense, no preambles.

I am armor pierced by the molten rays of the sun
tremulous shafts of bespoken motes beaming
light held aloft captured in a slanted angle
neither shadow
nor light

Unhinged from my Gibraltar
I act without thinking
When I become Andromeda chained
I think without acting
Bound, awaiting either Pegasus or Neptune's beast or Perseus

I slip out of form fall
sliver through the cold steal
churn into the frothing roil of sea

am captured and my hair spun into a net of stars
and I set upon the horizon the houses of my shared fates
equals

September the First

A crumpled MUNI transfer dated October 20 2013, Sunday lay folded on my desk. I saw it there. Me knowing the date, remembering the day. Totemic, it remains in the keepsake pile. 

I had finished my landmark seminar and hopped a MUNI, heading back to The Castro for gas station coffee and a smoke.  It was Sunday night, then Monday the next day. Aaron was going o come soon, at some point, pick me up. I may have ridden the bus Saturday night. The ticket may be from Sunday morning. Time has a way of transporting memories to more convenient historical settings, memory amends itself. 

Living with a sociopath narrsiscist nearly stole my breath and stopped my heart. 

The months following and all the confused pain of loving an unlovable in an unlivable situation was important. I remember the final weeks or months. they would stretch into hours, minutes that is. Time can be so relative in the moment it becomes progressively more challenging to accept its passing. 

Saying things like: if I am bad he will lock me in the basement. No windows, one door. More a bunker than a basement, cinderbock. 

Fifteen years could pass me gasping for three solid legs, the triangle of stability needs at least three consistent points of contact to remain balanced, firm, grounded.

After six months of breathing the same air, I came to know I needed more than oxygen to survive.  The air was the same always, stagnant recycled arguments, broken cars, dishes, dreams.

I faded into a shadow of myself, became my name's sake: shade-shifter. I am the shadow shaded savannah; I am the ghost's twin; Rapunzel's  locks. 

I came out an ember, smouldering and malnourished from the tepid air; on fire, not blazing: a coal nestled deep in the safety of a pocket, that's the fire bearer's responsibility. 

Cake for Breakfast

I read a quote recently, which I cannot attribute: if there's cake on the table it can't be that bad. 

I haven't been sleeping, not enough. I am pushing into something, evolving a new form. My body shows the signs; it's bruise season. I don't mind. My bike and I are in love, my legs are strong and I look like a cheetah in shorts.