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dream I was inside of crystals. they were healing me and I was healing them.

to do: continue to use pastels, continue to draw borders, continue to write, try to rest, don’t worry about school, don’t worry about work, get almond milk, complete paperwork but rest.

I bought art supplies in New York and nice white  thick cardstock with envelopes. like blessings to mail. they were decorative.  I began to rewrite poems on them and dot the edges with flowers growing up a vine. today I had chosen a  simple on by St. Francis.

“The result of prayer is life. Prayer irrigates the Earth and heart.”

I had a restless time in New York. Before Hanukkah dinner, I was invited to hang out upstairs with Alexandra and my friend. Alexandra lived upstairs, my friend lived below. Alexandra told us that a ghost had been there. that everything was on the fritz and she was running behind. she felt a very negative presence that started today. I had a hard time keeping focus as I was a little high but the edge of my ear became a whisper then a tingle then a soft chill climbing down my neck  and back, as Alex said “and you know who it is?”  she was telling a completely different story now. a man whispered in my ear  “who is it?”

I didn’t make a fuss about it but I gently discouraged them from breaking out the ouija board after dinner. just stating there’s too many people here. 

later in the middle of the night, in a dream, I was standing in the living room upstairs staring at all her plants.  i had been drawn to it as it looked like a conservatory. 

12/28/2016

winter had me florid. flush from being outside in the wind and flush from all the steam from the baths and teaching myself how to sit. also from moving and rearranging everything in my apartment.  my cheeks were bright red and my nose too.  I was examining the spots beginning to form on my skin. like little freckles. burned patches from the sun. it was only 39 degrees when I went outside but I didn’t take my usual precautions to bundle as I liked. I wore the minimum, one button up shirt and jeans and my regular big black jacket, comfy gray hat, boots. I was touching my face gently and seeing it, bare, baring. braced. only the lamp was on. I enjoyed seeing my face more distorted or shaded. I object to lights after 7 pm.  lately my nights have been dark, almost pitch black but for candles. I was unfocused on the noise of the room. the buzz that exists everywhere I go, in my ears or an echo reverberating from the street lamps. I wanted the sudden burst of color.

 I printed all the postcards I had made for the past two years and stuck them on the wall. just everywhere in the apartment. winter dehumanizes people. at its core, it is the revolutionary season. you have to tough this out. there are things that exist solely to build shell and people have to sometimes just tough things out. Philadelphia in January is one. to cope with the frigidity and my need for these long enduring walks and then long enduring periods of solitude, all my curtains were bright patterns. the house itself was painted garishly and I enjoyed it: the living room was yellow, this was carnation, a baby blue in the kitchen, a sea rock green in the bathroom. my bedroom yellow as well. I began to dress it even more: placed my brown stone mermaid beer cap opener in a corner near the tub. and my hanging rock mermaid somewhere near that. threw some shells from Virginia Beach around and began to crowd the shelf that laid there with purple flowers. I named it “Venus.”  I just needed to gaze at something every time my head was still. I cleared a bookshelf  out to hold more frames to put more pictures. I put some of the books in the trunk of my car and was gonna give them to a colleague to give to her client. the rest were put on the curb for someone to grab. I didn’t have romance novels like she requested but I picked out some short pieces about a woman’s struggle with grief. also some old russian literature that I didn’t think I would get around to. I think there was a tragic love story there.  

I began to notice the space warp and a bit of a line draw itself from the front door circling through the spare room to the mirror chest that held my brother’s ashes.  it started where the owl painting sat near the entrance and extended across the second half of my wooden chest, lined with candles, fake flowers and hung above it: many portraits, pieces. some printed, some bought, some my own photographs. a picture of an obscure red metal statue set to a sunset in the snow near the parkway. a few shots of trees set to a river, various rivers. a printed picture of a woman with a bloody lip and the rest blackened out. the line moved across another area, a shelf still being built. still being monitored. and it moved through the dark red curtains of my living room where I had pasted several postcards in between the two windows overlooking the  street. a stencil remained from the last tenant. I said it was ok to keep it so they didn’t paint over it. it read: In this house we serve the Lord. and finally circling around the hung framed piece of the dog, drooling with his mouth tied shut with flowers to pictures of my friends on the bookshelf to the mirror chest. I am in front of the mirror. I have been here for ten minutes looking past my face but I have also been seeing the line drawn from the front door over the dining room table where I do all of my work to the middle of the pink room as I stand limp in front of a mirror looking past my face. 

12/23/2016

I speak with intention. you cannot put too much stock in the written word; before the sentence is finished, the thought is already changing. a ritual can take your whole life. I think this is why I detest and seek writing at once. whatever charred remains I seal in its scrawled coffin, I lose the true physicality of the moment just by remembering it inaccurately. documenting it inaccurately. it is a rush and nothing more. 

I wrote my intentions on a piece of paper and then I drown them in the bath for solstice. I held them under water. I wanted to see what water would do. what I wrote to let go.   if anyone asked how I was doing, I would say fine. 

a note in my phone from today reads this: soul some god infusion, a pink blue violet snake winding up my spine. I started looking for a sun and started running into headlights. Bless all of this god for it is your creation, and I am only one of your created. I help you make things. I am God when they hear me. when I started looking for myself I started breathing from your lungs and found an ineffable love.

another note from today reads this: “one time a guy fucked me while I was sleeping.”

I know I smoke too much weed currently hoping I will figure it out.  what am I trying to say? just trying to find the right maantra.

Don’t rush into yourself.

I sink back into the tub, cup of earl gray on the side. it is steaming and full of honey. sometimes I pretend a man is there with me. asking me questions. egging me on. nodding. and I’m responding with stories. 

12/22/2016, solstice.

I went to a woman’s house I was seeing. a different one. she asked if I wanted to take a bath with her. we took a bath in chamomile and epsom salt and I began to tell her that I thought my house was haunted. or rather, that I had many astral experiences that I wanted to dissect.  the water was lukewarm and we rubbed each other’s legs. she didn’t shave and that didn’t bother me. she had no hair. I was attracted to her because she looked dainty like a pretty boy. I liked men who were effeminate and manageable. she was shorter than me but always wore heeled boots. last time we met at her house I asked if I could go down on her for practice and she let me. 

I started tonight by telling her the colorado story. we had settled in the bath. she demanded lumination. she had spent hours defending her position as a witch already and she was claiming she had right to the deific heritage. I was sort taken aback by all labels and confused about my own identity beginning to walk the line to use the label “queer” “bisexual” “gay” “splintered.”I ignored some of her incendiary thoughts around the use of such a coveted title and didn’t dare go into any detail about my summoning of Lilith. in fact, I puposely left that out by going very far back to Boulder. I begin by telling her:

“I once took a nap in the middle of the day and woke up to a woman, a white woman, like glowing white. not wearing a gown but I guess you could say it was a gown as well. she had big, bright blue eyes. she was right next to the top of my bed. probably about 2:30 pm and  was bright outside. I tell her that the white woman was saying “it’s ok it’s ok” and then within no change of frame, she’s gone and next to the oven is a green glowing orb. I then feel like I’m being pulled from my body and I hear like a spit sound near my ear. like my spit is sucking back. I feel like I’m floating.  I panic and try to drop down in the bed and then I feel myself realign and settle in. almost as if I have walked back into my spine.  I wake up. I text my ex boyfriend because he was super scared of aliens. he used to get too high and call me at 330 am afraid of his closet. true story. so I told him first. my sponsor at the time told me to get a shaman.”

“yeah,” she interrupts.

I think of the line from my friend’s film. I am the Jinn. but I don’t say it. I tell her the most recent visitor. there was this thing that looked like my brother. but had a stretched face. he was wearing a white tee shirt and, I settle my hand on her shin and lean forward. people have described me as being nearly apathetic to human connection.  he was pointing to a painting on the wall. it was a tree he had painted. and then suddenly I’m  like screaming but in the astral realm and feeling claws on my legs and I tried to climb back in bed. 

“you need a guide.”
“I don’t do well with guides.”
“these entities are pulling you out as  you sleep.”
“mmm.”

that was a troubling thought. she said:

“it sounds like you aren’t astrally traveling but being pulled into the astral realm.”

she let me borrow a book on tethering to Earth during astral travel and some other things about spirit work, lighting candles, what to ask for, etc. and also a book about polyamory. very thick book. I pretended I would read it and nodded a lot. we didn’t have sex. we looked at her crystal collection. she named all of them and where she got them which is cool because I can’t remember what I did with my garnet, let alone, when I got it.  or rather, every few years I throw things away. so whether I have that garnet seems up to God. we hung out on her bed. she was scolding me for deviating from known mechanisms and chants.

“the mantras have existed for thousands of years. we say the mantras because they are being heard over and over and gaining power as they are spoken.”
“I like to make my own mantras and repeat them over and over.

 I was there because she had a special solstice ritual the next day and this was the only night we could hang out.  I watched her cut ginger and make us strong tea. I sat in her kitchen regaling her with all the ways my dreams have been keeping me on edge. she was abrasive because I refused input but seemed palms open. I was also leaving a lot out.  she resented women using the term “witch” unless they were of a witch’s heritage. I learned a few things from her. 

“my mother was a witch,” she said to me matter of factly. “it’s in my blood line.”

use ginger liberally. boil for ten minutes. offer friends tea and baths of chamomile are sweet but roomier with one. you can shave your legs if you want. ideas of polyamory are attractive in theory but you also have to be attracted to the person you are fucking. controlling identities is limiting and bossy people are kind of a mood kill for exploration. it wasn’t her I liked. I am loyal in a very secret way becoming fixated on one person at a time. I left not knowing how I felt at all. about her or her concern that “entities are pulling me out of my body at night.” what mantra would I say?

God.

I walked to my car wanting to walk longer. wanting to skin myself of any fragrance left from her couch. 

12/21/2016

dream I was in my childhood home staring at a clear statue on top of my parent’s old stereo in our living room. it moved its head and pointed up. 

today I sat and stared upwards at a drone for thirty minutes. tt was just a guy flying a drone over the Ben Franklin Parkway, maybe tracking traffic or just testing it out.  but I was unsure. I wanted every shot he downloaded to have me staring intensely right at it. an act of patience and tenacity. 

I don’t like being watched unless it’s pinpoint bulls eye only two eyes on me and I invited them. 

12/20/2016

the rule is dreams. I have to post the dreams as they really were to match the date as well. only filling in details of accuracy. I can’t lie about the dreams.

dreamt I was crying to xxx and telling her I had an attachment disorder that’s why I can’t open up to people. crying next to her. crying in bathroom. helping someone cook in my kitchen but I was embarrassed of my kitchen. was helping to clean up.

at some other part of the dream, I was in some sort of ceremony and was embracing people. I was scared to go into the dark. xxx was with his girlfriend again. I was wandering around losing everything. 

my moods move houses. I made a list of all the things I enjoyed and none of them involved people:

yoga
walking
reading
writing
eating
earl gray tea
art
poetry
nature
animals
herbs
flowers
learning/being studious

my moods move houses. they move them and they jump into them. 

12/7/2016

I had begun to rearrange my house and make use of the chest that came with the side room. this gaudy yellow carnival looking piece, all wood. the people that helped me to move asked if I wanted it removed. but I loved the mirror. the case itself  was weird. I found it tacky.  it looks like it was made for an arcade fortune teller that you stick coins inside. I began to decorate it now. having not known what to do with it. first the urn. then black tourmaline and driftwood from oceanview. then a picture of us: my brother and I as children and the brass piece he made in high school. an old art project. 

I also began to cry in my bathtub. it felt good. I rearranged the chest and then took a long bath. I lined the tub with crystals and about three candles. I let the music drift in. it was all ambient. all I could take. I would let minutes tick by as I watched  the candles make shapes in their little glass containers. and I don’t know if I made meaning of it. it seems like I did inquire things and then wait for pictures. I sat back more in the bath then I did on any couch. my tub was chipping away slowly. the paint coming off. the thing repainted over and over and so poorly at that. I had given up asking for help with it shortly after I moved. I soaked in that tub many nights beginnign that fall. it always smelled like lavender. 

I was laid out in the tub like that night after night, stoned, watching candles project shadows on my wall.sometimes I would see the centipede on the ceiling the day before knowing it had been in here having seen it here before. in the tub as my cat watched it. I thought of it like a friendly wraith. here to deliver something to me. a symbol of luck. others detest insects but I make vows to protect them. 

 if anyone asked how I was doing, I said fine.

12/5/2016

I told my therapist my journaling was unreliable and I showed her the last few pages were just black thick lines I drew.  I call them “borders,” I tell her. I don’t like writing every day. I don’t like the minutae.that’s not it either. I walk a lot. she knows that. I spend one to two hours walking around the city aimlessly. it feels like nurturing a need. I do like my apartment and the stained glass windows. I have been rearranging that side room again. I have begun to use the mirror chest as a holder for my brother’s ashes. 

12/3/2016