windwalker

I see your voice
clouds over us
damp sets in
as mist settles
we are spheres
and for a moment inhaled
the same air

I glimpsed your open eyed
woes
dignity shame

chilled
stone cold

companionship

melted stone
lava

shame's dignity
never expires
'set me free

from myself
and my predilection,"
sand wind in my eyes

tears trip
tears rip

right through my throat
I glimpsed your open eyes

second stage

at the seatac airport. I'm moderately awake and appropriately nervous.

*when the cost of business is too high*

it's taken my mind months to program new tributaries, equal amounts wary and resolute.

I have a chance to shake the dust and shake shake shake I will in the moments of darkness when the wind howls and blankets are not enough

I have thick gold lacquer and a long memory.

when I hear the deep diesel rumble of a passing rig that shakes the earth I count back to zero and know

I have thick goodbyes and long hellos ahead of me.

this is the thank you for secrets and coffee and shake shake shake our whispers of glee

the long open road and the hum of never again fingers around my throat, insidious words of poison in my heart, of all this and more as we live and breath

to safe arms and long legs stretched out into tomorrow. I am strong and my eyebrows snap archly.

history, I hear, is told by the victors.

to no more victories and no more wars. I dance in my shadow and light the moon.

fever dreams

day sleep is thick with dreams. today I dreamed I was in love. the feeling was tangible as we moved moved through unknown territory. the face I didn't recognize but that feeling of acceptance and connection was a potent reminder that my heart is resting in dormant latency. I am not void rather patient.
my heart knows what I have forgotten.

burden of proof

hour two of block party, steets closed and cars being towed. questions? the answer is no.

today at the home depot I had a full blown anxiety attack. the familiar tightening of my chest, hot throat, blurred vision, cascading sounds overtook my lymbic system, my amegdula triggered I shut myself in a bathroom stall.

jammed: imagine words and endorphines crush my cortex.

****

the right to know

you can't put fabulous in a box motha fuxers

the surge of energy that marks the end if a cycle is intoxicating. I have plutonium in my eyes and a ring on my left hand.

half five this morning there was a crack and the ripen clouds poured. I washed in the sound. I sat meditating before rising to take my morning tea.

it's day ten of a juice fast and my tolerance for complicated shame is reaching an all-time critical low. I am making vows. my health and happiness are my responsibility. my body is mine, as is my mind.

more: I went to the doctor today and complicated shame aside was given the free to fuck.

Toast

My phone took a swim
I have a replacement coming in a few days, I ordered one a week ago as I had a premonition that this one was ill-fated. It's funny knowing things before they happen. Is it really the tail that wags the dog?

A kind person brought me two phones so that I wouldn't be phoneless. It seems like a giant hassle to have to call my phone company twice this week to set up, rearrange service.

I am on the fence about acts of kindness these days. On one side it's a really nice phone and they don't want it back. They also didn't wipe it so I have way too much access to their personal data. On the other side, this level of trust is strange, we are nearly strangers. He said something along the lines of not wanting me to ride the bus without a phone. Safety alert! I am trying not to turn into a complete fucking bitch these days. I am curious what is unsafe about riding a bus and how having a phone would help. I am hands, feet, nails, teeth. More, I am the girl who leaves bags of cookies outside for the Ave Rats with giant letters that say "food." I didn't ask for a phone. I wasn't offered a phone. I was given two. He'd like one back.

One more shift left at the shop. I have learned a boatload there. I repaired some super fancy gear today which gave me a boner. Reverse engineering and putting fragile, expensive machines together makes me bite my lip.

leap into clouds

when I was a girl one if my fantasy environments was "cloud world." it was a place next door, on top of rubber world. cloud world was a complete realm where I was scuttled about atop clouds. clouds were also capable of slowing your decent into rubber world, which ultimately mattered little because rubber world was bouncy. more than safety and transportation, cloud world was soft diffused light, warm edges, echo and reverberation.

my original foray to cloudland was accidental. I jumped extremely high one day while exploring in rubberland and was catapulted above the edge of the castle walls.

trees became ants. I was afraid until I was captured  by a passing ferry cloud. it was kind and I rolled about in its pillowed embrace.

****

rush hour

it seems impossible that morning is here. I just slept; I just woke.

the bus stop smells of beer,
the apple round lady across the street is smoking a joint- I wonder what her purple gloved hand smells like, why she only wears one glove, if this is routine. I suspect it is. I saw her here last week, left hand purple glove, right hand fingers grasped around the straps of her bag.

13 days and I want so much to inhabit them, learn the language f crows, watch the sunrise.

this juice fast is smoking; I am learning about impulse: control.

Half-Pint

I am crazy jacked up on half a cup of black tea.

The days are dwindling down, the four and a half months I've been in Seattle have been a godsend. I am ready to move or ready to stay, it's hard knowing that I am on my way out.

Already nostalgic I have to question my motives for leaving.

More than anything there are those that I've come to know during my refuge, people that have touched my heart and mind, skin that I've watched change from pale to glowing as the summer's rays deepen.

I have a fantasy picnic: blanket covered with bowls of salads, pitchers of beverages dripping condensation, thick slices of cake. It's on a hill, under a tree. The grass is thick in our toes as we edge off the blanket. Somehow there are sheets snapping in the wind and we are also together, the food packed away, consumed, left for ants. We are together wrapped in the crisp wind and the day pushes through.

As I circle into my heart I think about the girl I almost kissed this week. Or did, but it was only for show, for pictures, for art. The edges of her lips touched the arch of mine. That non-kiss was lightening.

Light is being lost by the handful each day. Thick and heavy air settles in the valleys of the city. I am glad to be by the sea. I want to see
white legs flash as they run for the waves.

Quick Dash

I have been accepted. School begins and soon, until then nail biting and bra snapping.

I am all pins and no needles. I could go for a tattoo.

It has been a long time coming, and I am not one to count anything before it actually happens, and I am filled with gratitude.

There is no silence and there is no shame. I will be in the wilderness and in the stars. I will be in lipstick and bars. I will be in leather, glasses, pearls. I have a dictionary and a Chicago manual and know how to use them.

Gathering Roses

You, who are the petals and blooms
link hand and arm into a chain of memories laughter secrets hidden behind gestures,

and I, who sleeps long hard nights of shifting dreams and reclaimed histories,
are friends

Today is success on toast.

I am getting close to knowing my next step. The pieces are in place. I heard that my student loan application is being processed by the school of my choice, I contacted the DMV for information about how to transfer across state lines, I have a bank account that can pay for these things.

I am attempting to manage things from states away a distance that makes organization challenging and exciting. I want so many things so quickly it is hard to sit and make the time to be clear. Part of that clarity is that I have long and lasting friends here in Seattle. Beautiful wonderful people who stretch back a decade or more. We have nights remembered and more forgotten in the brown haze of youth and addiction. I am in love with these people because now we are bodies rather than ideas.

I have friends here that are new to me; I have a home in my heart that I will not abandon. Historical Chaya had wonderful taste. I savor these moments of knowing that we are close, that there will be more, that we are all connected and in this together. Distance seems less now that I am connected to my body.

We are coming world. Brush, lens, pen in hand we are dream-weaver shadow-dancers made flesh of the world.

Boom Boom

Back to Life

I have been going to church and have a new dear friend to thank for that.  I know that I will never be an evangelist. I do however find solace in the institution. This is not a struggle for me.

My facebook is back up and I am actively pursing people that I have known in the form of friend requests; I know that I am leaving soon and would like to keep those bonds at least limping along the internet.

I am chubby! it's wretched. I have been eating too much flour and refined sugars as is wont to occur when working in food service, especially cafes, especially cafes that only serve bagels. I could live one hundred years and never eat a bagel again.

Watching the fireworks from the middle of a lake is the way to live.  I have been blessed to know that I am cared for, loved, accepted. It's definitely time for me to start returning the favor to myself. Hello, gym I am your friend, can we sweat together regularly.

Loneliness brackets moments when I don't have my phone, book, computer in hand. I have found that it is my ability to disconnect from those around me that is disconcerting. I have filled every moment with a reason and the language of crows is all but forgotten. There are countless opportunities within a city. Whether those opportunities are social, economic, cultural, or adventure driven they all take time, planning, commitment and follow through. I am a bit wayward and my impulsive nature has been shunning the confines of city life. I agree with then break the social rules. I struggle to maintain my good word here as I know how topical it is.

I fill up the void with people of good nature. I want to imagine that they get something in return for the moments spent with me. I know that our conversations thrill me and then a hand grasps blindly for mine. I recoil or not, calculating the relative risk of a kiss.

I have always been relational. I like relationships, they provide me something, a sense of purpose, direction, quality of life spent shared and experienced, stability. As a cold ambitious twenty something, my relationships tended to last a few intense months before I would distance myself and create a separation. I moved into my mid-twenties and those months expanded into more lengthy affairs.

Perhaps that is the more appropriate division: the difference between a love affair and a relationship.

Those lengthy affairs turned into long-term pursuits and I fell in love. I was still humming and buzzing and fixing my heart from the untimely and sudden departure of my father. I had yet to become a real true adult. I didn't really know what a relationship was as I had little to go on, no real road map, nothing but my heart which I trusted but didn't know yet knew how to deceive me.

The heart can be a great deceiver. I still believe that the heart should be followed and expand and taught to be gentle, kind, full of light. And, the heart is driven by the brain which is driven by sets of impulses that were imprinted as half-pint humans. What we as adults need to be functional, rounded stable adults seemingly has very little to do with response to popsicles on a hot July evening when in reality it has everything to do with frozen juice.

Let us also not forget that we do not belong to ourselves. Giant huge molecules called hormones run through our brains and bodies making insanity happen to normally sane people.

If our brains, hearts, and bodies can all lie what are we left with? how do we trust when everything seems to crumble? I suspect the answer is in programming and learning to create new neural responses to similar patterned behaviors. I also suspect it is in allowing people to express themselves fully without fear of recrimination or judgement.

Feelings influence thoughts and thoughts influence feelings; we cannot (necessarily, thank you giant hormones) change how we are feeling, we can change what we think.

The plastic mind.

FreeDoom

I am tired and cozy in sweatshirt and books and I want to be cozy for days. I am about to go watch futbol with my brother.

I was offered a management position at my current job; that's so much nicer than being fired.

California, I miss your song.

Oregon, I hear your voice.

Washington, I walk your streets.

I am enlisting in the support of every faculty these days. Higher education or bust. I am longing for a love long lost. Love does not fade, not true love.

crime sundays

allow a moment
of disappear
I will give you a heart

to the moments in between when I forget: give me more

this remembrance of my disappearance is humanity

long forgotten, silence you're free to welcome night's noise

things we do

acquire basic commodities
evaluate facilitate
garnish humor's idosyncratic
*spell me later*
jousting knife
labor means no peace
quiet rest
turn under
vile weed