women who write – Page 15

At 7:30, I am dry and dressed. The gown is long and flowing: burgundy, velvet, full sleeves with an obtuse triangle cut down the back. The entire back is exposed except for one thin strip that is hung at the top between my shoulder blades. My back is my best feature. It is taut and strong and firm. It is the mask I wear as I walk away from everyone. I am playing with the corded belt that separates the bottom from the top and twirling for the antique mirror I lug everywhere I go. Nodding, an ok is all I can manage. That is better than usual.

. Teasing my hair in a way that flatters the right side of my face, for about six minutes, I stare at my profile from different angles. This is incredibly frustrating to me. My hair is naturally messy and I want to “figure it out.” I want you to see me a certain way when you see me. Ok, I say again. Everything I do is rehearsed. I move my bangs back to the front and let the hair fall as it may; in waves to the top of my shoulder. It is thinner than it looks, auburn when there is sun.

“I am the great illusionist,” I hold my arms out in front the oval mirror and form an old-timey overdrawn smile, the way carnival workers grin to lure someone into their games. It is wide and sickly. This is for my own enjoyment. “The magician and her gown.”

I twirl one more time admiring the dress and then I return to my makeup bag to apply my mascara slowly. The weed makes everything take longer than it naturally should. I don’t look at the clock because for once I forget and I have nowhere to be tonight. I am dressing up to get in an accident. I want you to take this in slowly. I apply my eyeliner slowly. I have nowhere to be tonight. I pucker my lips. I am dressing up to get in an accident. I close my eyes and open them suddenly. When I open my eyes, I want you to see everything including my long wet lashes fluttering like drops of lighting at your doorstep. If there is anything I want you to remember, it is everything about me.

I’m stoned and I decide to drive. It’s irresponsible and I don’t do it often, but it’s a blizzard and I am wearing combat boots underneath my gown. This makes me feel rebellious and thoughtful. Sometimes I pretend I am carrying a pocket knife at my side. I picture it emblazoned with the name Hecate down one side and the great herself on the other; her three heads and two snarling dogs at her feet ready to enter the night. I grab my side sometimes when I walk past groups of men as if I am getting ready to pull it out and slice their little fingertips. Just for fun, I giggle in the thought which makes me laugh in real life as I am passing one of the only other people out walking on the street. He catches me. Nothing makes me feel safe.

“I am a sociopath,” I say out loud to the snowfall and the man keeps walking.

At 8pm, I am sitting inside of my car as it is warming listening to Jeff Buckley because it is good and depressing and I am in constant turmoil. Music delivers what men have always promised but couldn’t: an expansive climactic escape. As it heats, I stare at my reflection in the rearview. The blush is too heavy but my eye makeup is light so I feel balanced. I slowly apply the lip balm before I apply the lipstick I bought to match my dress. My lips are desert dry and I am thirsty.

“Fucking marijuana,” I chirp in a sing song voice and reach for the console blindly.

I take a giant gulp from my canteen and savor the cold water on my tongue. It’s like I’ve been eating sand. I stare at the green ring around my pupil.

“You’re a narcissist, Cat.”

“Does that also make me a sociopath?”

“You just want to be crazy! You just like to malinger for attention. You want everyone’s attention all of the time.”

“Malinger, Jay, that’s a good one. Were you reading my diary again?”

“You’re cruel. Everything you say is barbed or loaded. You’re such a fucking bitch sometimes.”

“Maybe I’m a sociopath, babe. Maybe you’re lucky it’s only words that hurt your itty bitty baby feelings. Maybe you should be grateful I don’t rip you to shreds in your sleep with my teeth.”

I continue to apply the eyeliner and listen to the front door slam.

“1…2…”

“You know what, Catarina,” Jay throws the door back open.

“Fucking clockwork,” I exit the bathroom to greet him with a full face and tooth.

At 8:20, I am sitting in my car filled with fear. You’re stoned. There is no reason to be afraid but I am. This is how premonition works. It takes over and starts to drive. It repeats the feeling you will have when the time hits. This is instinct. Many people ignore gut feelings and those people waste my time. I know what a chiming church bell symbolizes. I know what a year turning means. I know I am an hourglass. I am a wilting forest. I am going to be late for something and on time for something else. It is 8:21 pm when I begin driving.

I am one of the only cars on the road. Everyone else is an Uber driver. In protest, I refuse to take an Uber in bad weather. It’s mean and even though they will get paid a lot, I am always afraid that what I carry with me in my hand will be dealt with them. What a senseless death. Unless, of course, it awakens that person to trust their gut in their next life. I snicker.

“I am not a REAL sociopath,” I say out loud to the rearview trying not to spend any more time lost in the reflection.

No, this is between me and God. I don’t feel high but I am driving 2 miles an hour and openly talking to myself with vigor. This is not that unusual except the same conversation is replaying over and over which concerns me. Oh, that little tug about instinct and remorse. Sometimes one begets the other.

Why don’t you tell me again?

I told you already.

No, in linear order.

WHAT THE FUCK IS LINEAR ORDER?

It doesn’t work. I’m shaking. I’m tense. I have to drive over the bridge and it’s a snowstorm and I’m slightly stoned. Fuck. Why did I choose to wear such a ridiculous outfit? The light is turning yellow and there is no turn on red on Spring Garden. I am relieved but there are cars pulling up behind me. I turn on some music. It is slow and long and sullen. What is this? A playlist I made called Space. It’s not soothing but I don’t change it. My reaction time is slow and unusual. I am in a trance. I am in a trance in a car moving over the bridge that will tumble right in front of me. I am in a trance in my car driving over the bridge. I am in a trance at the next light waiting to get on the interstate. Then I snap out of it.
“Thank you God,” I say out loud.

I have driven over the bridge with incredible speed, or without any memory of it. I start telling myself a story so I’ll continue the game. Once, when I was younger, a small girl, I went to my mother for comfort. I said, mom, I can’t seem to make friends. She said, Catarina, you’re a bully. I said, that’s not it. She said, I’ve seen the way you talk to Leana. You treat her like she’s your servant. I said, that’s not it! Except I screamed it. She said, you never let anyone finish saying anything. I said, I’m trying to finish something now and you won’t fucking listen. She said, you are a precocious bitch and you will not talk to me like that. I said, that’s not all I am, and I slammed the door so hard that a picture fell and broke in her room. She stormed out and chased me with a notebook and slapped me across the face. It was the only time she hit me. I may have deserved it. There are many parts of the story that I left out. More importantly, that was the last time I tried to open that conversation. I sulked for days, resentful, embarrassed that I was worth hitting. I had never been hit. I had been touched, but I had never been hit. My resolve changed after that. I knew what it felt like to have someone use force against you; power, braun, words. I had none of that. I was only about nine or ten years old. My defenses were down. I think I played Kirby’s Adventure alone in my room for a week straight. I didn’t call Leana even though she called me. I didn’t watch TV with my brother or ask to play double on Mario Kart. I didn’t even go outside. It was summer and I was sulking and opening the darkest part of myself inside of my own mind.

Without noticing, I am in a different neighborhood and I am I losing control. Not of the wheel, but with my whole body. I start to panic. I start to shake. I understand the thing I am dreading is happening. I decide to turn down a random street and then another random street so I am far away from other headlights. I don’t want anyone else involved. I am shaking and whatever Brian Eno Hammock soothing devil mix I made in an attempt to quell my bloodlust at an earlier moment is backfiring and I feel like I am on Mars as the car careens across the street and immediately crashes into a brick wall. It’s weird what we protect in panic. I let go of the wheel to lean into the crash and immediately grab the locket hanging around my neck.

September 10, 2018 0

i’ve been out to lunch since we got here.
it’s another change in seasons;
spring and everyone is out to
brunch celebrating
maternal lessons,

begotten lies, or if they’re more
triumphant; forgotten spite.
spring hats,
spring sandals,
spring grief,
sometimes things just go away
like missing pieces:
backs of earrings in the hotel room
at your youngest cousin’s wedding,
origami florets you sprinkled at your mother’s ankles
when you were just learning how to fix
the pancakes to give appreciation;
diplomas, expired passports, birth certificates,
reiki and doula certifications,
everything a lover gave you,
hand me downs, or cute owl
pajama sets that were xmas gifts
callously discarded in the great
“I saw a bed bug” throw
everything the fuck away fest.
I have nothing left.
anything that reminds you of your
lineage: scrapbooks and family
heirlooms, voicemails from your dead
brother pleading for you to
come back, the ashes swinging from
your neck,

they don’t really mean much.
you’re here and you can prove it if they ask
with this giant gaping hole in the center of
everything
that you at last had the guts to crack;
the diamond she stole,
all winter blooms,
the time you had left,
grand ideas slipping out of your ears like ripples of
eureka!
plopping on your floor for the ants to devour
before they ever land.
you should have tried harder.

because love is boundless I can’t possess it;
it consumes me with its humility,
strangles like history,
swallows like tidal waves of
unyielding southern humidity,
and I can’t escape it.
feelings for the flesh that steal me are so
palpable, like ghosts, I’m moaning
exorcism! and synonyms for
hurry up.
the climax is the body’s clever parapraxis,
and love?
I want this thing gone

so I can be empty with my tea
and good ideas
shopping with the other women.
I’ll slice open those ants and rip my
thoughts back out,
write down our fused imaginings,
send you the book stuffed with their dead little toes
and threatening locks of my dead ashy hair.
I’m vanishing inside of myself again.
I knit a sweater full of verses I’ve never heard,
wrap it tightly for the winter.
wear the world like vapor,
my fortune cookie says
and something adds:

my dear girl, you are so lonely
you have created all of this
(the world just falls from my shoulders)
you are mourning events,
people, places & things that never existed
(cut it open, pull it out)
wipe those ruby red eyes
and take a look around
(before it disintegrates)
but my house is a burning building
so I better bounce.

I had one fawn over me
but he fell in the giant yawn
I stomped in the yard
and like my bright wishes,
he’s also passing me by
carrying something I don’t get
because it’s real and it’s found
he is holding it and I am
eyes shut tight catarina
thinking about it
again when something grabs
my arm.

“how to forget everything day 67”

September 9, 2018 0

At 5:30 pm, I am in the bath. Winters I spend immersed in bath. Tonight, it is chamomile and yarrow oil and a sprinkle of angelica root. I have been having some superstitious tendencies again so I add my Nana’s rosary to the windowsill next to me, a hunk of tourmaline on the shelf that holds my razor and shampoo, and a rose quartz at the bottom of the tub. This will make it worse. I snap my head towards the blow of air beside me but I settle. There’s nothing there. Baths soothe my gnawing winter madness. Some call it depression or “seasonal affective disorder.” You’re sad, Cat. I don’t know what to really call it but nothing could be worse than this.

“Did you take your prozac? he asks from the kitchen.

I dug my nails into the sofa. My hair was combed. My lips were not chapped.

“Yes,” I responded immediately. “Everything should be all right now.”

Resentful, I sat on the edge of the couch prepared to jump up at any moment and leave if I ever could grow the guts. It was the mostly mocking tone I had grown so accustomed to hearing that triggered my bottled rage. The medicine created a tense space between us and left me feeling like a new baby well of sorrow was building somewhere deep inside of me, but I couldn’t empty it. Mechanisms related to crying had disappeared or been stifled somewhere in the bottom of a trunk I had no access to; had lost the key or motor skills to turn the lock so I just let it fill without my knowledge. It sat fat in its vicious growth, plump with previous insult, previous assault or terror, ready to spill over if I had the wherewithal to sharpen my nails and eviscerate my body; suffocate him with the bile that spilled out, or the precious bottle of antidote, or the pillow I keep between us and grip daily for comfort. I’m a tepid lunatic that never grows to boil. Devoid of feeling, but going through the motions, I was sitting eerily still waiting for dinner. I was wearing a pink and purple striped sundress that tied in the back. I was wearing lip gloss to match. My purse was already on my arm and I had pinned a stray hair back with a blue and green caterpillar clip a girlfriend had given me to remind who I was, and mostly, I was trying not to check the time as I waited for the years to pass by.

My bottom lip is under water before I realize I am sinking in the midst of another flashback. I shoot up with fake alarm. I will never drown like this, but I am stoned, I remind myself. Better to be careful than feed your ghost regret. What is this? I look around my delusive tomb in horror. Lit with more than a dozen votives: all white and tall and leaving flecks of wax all over everything, the room smells faintly of fresh linen but it is a manufactured smell; plastic, not the way most fresh linen smells. My sheets smell blank. There was more than that too: lavender incense wafting from the dresser in the bedroom, the ylang-ylang that permanently coats the sides of the tub, and the faint remnant of vinegar from where I tried to scrub the spots off the mirror with my homemade glass solution. I am over stimulated. Wildly stoned and always coming back to myself in the middle of the same thought: maybe that’s where these hallucinations start, I feel uncomfortable. The voice from my bowels is starting again. Goosebumps dot my shoulder and I regret not making a fresh Earl Gray before I got in. Loscil is playing in the background from my bed and I want it louder. I want someone there to help with these things and I can’t tell you how long I sit upright in a fetal position contemplating that thought. I keep no clock in the bathroom. I desperately need the respite.

Sinking back to let my head rest on the peeling ceramic, I sigh loudly in a way that tells the world, Nevermind, I am alone and I’m ok today. I’m going to make it. There is a way out, and I inhale deeply the green grass dotted by gray ash from the glass bowl I placed next to my nana’s rosary and I say to no one:

“I need help.”

This is fine. There is something about water that is so soothing to me. My whole life has been spent in water. As a child, my summers were spent outside with the Dyson sisters at the community pool; getting tan and bracing the high dive, guessing which lifeguards liked each other, giggling, showing the boys the banana Now-n–Laters stuck to our teeth. If it wasn’t the pool, it was at the beach chasing ghost crabs, learning how to body surf with Alex, being pulled under everytime and miraculously standing to survive, the top of my bathing suit always twisted to expose one nipple before I realized. I was always keeping an eye on Alex from some distance. Even at the pool, in my accidental glow and popularity, he in his awkward pallid skin, we sometimes were distant but never separate. I always kept an eye on him. Some days my legs were beat by jellyfish, my toes were sore from broken shells, cut and pinched my crabs, but I always went back in. During storms, I scoured the block in the pouring rain looking for bugs or just letting the water baptize me. Even as a child, I showered whenever I was upset and the thundering tantrum couldn’t cut it, I needed a warm cleanse. In adolescence, baths replaced those as I needed more time to mourn the interminable unrequited love that I continually faced as my hormones grew into teeny monsters to match the teeny breasts that baited them closer. I hit that budding menses stage and sobbed into the pink drain at my bad luck; a woman?!?! Everyone hates women.

My mom called me a little water bug and those didn’t bother me either. I played tidal wave with the beetles that flew into our kiddie pool. I ducked dragonflies, watched them skim the tops of the water in the ditch when we played house in my backyard. I spent hours in the rain plucking worms from their hiding places; under bricks in neighbors’ gardens, my legs caked in mud as I walked back with a handful to feed to Michaelangelo, our alligator snapping turtle. I never avoided puddles, I jumped right into them. Water was my sanctuary.

“You’re filthy, Catarina!” my mother would scream as I traipsed the wilderness all over our kitchen floor on the way to the tank, letting twigs drop from my knees.

“Look, Alex!” I would ignore her to drop a handful of worms near Mike’s head so he saw them instantly.

The two of us would stand over him in awe as he quickly, with uncanny precision, devoured each one right after the other, little particles of flesh floating to the top. I pressed my palms together to stay grounded in the excitement.

“Get in the shower when you’re done!” my mom shrieked pointing at me.

“Mom, look,” Alex pointed as I rolled my eyes.

“Cool,” Alex would say and I nodded.

I splash the top of the water for my own enjoyment, letting the daydreams take back over, another Cheshire Cat smile spreading wide across my face. The weed was devouring every synapse. One summer, I had a sprained ankle. Who knows where I got it; probably doing gymnastics in the backyard, showing off, proving I was the best at something I was clearly a novice at, but I tumbled. My mom wrapped it carefully in an ace bandage for me. Some hot day, we went to a party near a lake with their friends and their friends’ kids. No one packed a bathing suit for me because I wasn’t supposed to swim with my impairment but once everyone jumped into the water, I was immediately forlorn.. My parents really couldn’t take my tantrums for more than a few seconds and I knew this was no place for screaming, that would lead to too much embarrassment. I had to beg.

Consumed by jealousy, I began,“Please please please please please please please please pleeeeease, please pleeeeeaase.” I repeated like that to my mom and began to hop on one foot. “I am fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. Loooook, fiiine. Fine fine fine.”

My mother frowned.

“I’ll watch her Linn,” my dad, fun drunk hero, interrupted before she could remind me of the agreement and I began to quickly hobble and quickened the hobble to a half run, still in red sundress, still with barrettes in hair to the edge of the lake. I started wading to catch up to my new friends on the back of their dad’s raft before my mom could even consider an outfit for me to put on instead of the dress.

“Look, mom,” I shouted already caught up to the others. “I’m fine! I am using my right leg! I won’t drown!” I splashed for effect to show her I was the best swimmer out there.

My mom waved. I waved back. It was that perfect time of day in summer. Everyone had the day off. Everyone had eaten and drank their fill of wine coolers. The kids had plenty of soda and time to run around the house. We were settling but still excited; had worked some of that nervous energy out. The sun was beginning it’s journey to set casting a yellow glow over the entire surface of the water and everyone was happy. I was in the water and everyone was happy. I was not alone.

I shoot up again with that thought. You’re stoned. I am stoned and sinking into the water again. I run my hands over my wet head and curl back into my upright fetal position to watch the nearest flame wink.

“It’s so hard to stay present,” I say to the empty apartment.

Tapping my fingers on top of the water to watch the ripples, I pretend the noises it makes are from someone else. Someone else’s hand on top of the water. Someone else’s eyes doused in flame reflecting back to me,“Have you ever tried telling anyone about your fear of drowning?”

Fuck. The imaginary man handing me the hot Earl Gray is right. I am lonely.

September 9, 2018 0

we are sharing visions.

during our forced intermission,
I became a lantern and
my own crucifixion was
paused to grow my
sparkling spine sharp like
sudden beams of light shining
on your morning sex and
I walked forward slaughtering
everything hidden with a
wave of my hand, focused
eyes incantation, scribe
and text I having been reborn with bone
like wand, am luring rooks
for guns and ;
turning mice to men
with a flash of tongue
and then turning men to wolves
to find him.

the queen is fat now
gorging herself with army;
the war you begged for
and are bound to get
is here on time.
I gather every friend I know
and share my plans
for combat enticing each one
with a different reward.
this is the queen you
asked for:
acerbic communist,
generous with her
violence, but you are
Persephone’s
final futile hours
picking berries in the
garden,

sniffing tulips absentmindedly,
(nevermind the sunset)
plucking lilies from the water,
watching the ripples form circles
around your fingertips
and then you’re
screaming at your flowers
being swallowed by the ground
switch places
an earthworm bit her and said
as Pallas emerged with reminders,
a sello from the water,
floral crown and
speaking in her native tongue:
ways to blow direction,
ways to conjure storms.
oh, here it is again,
that little lie about choice
she goes with her knees
falling through the earth,
prayer hands.

but she goes and keeps
her head above that dirt,
what’s a curse to those who
know the power
of reverse?

well, we are sharing visions.

“the magician reversed”

September 2, 2018 0

no bra
and a weak smile,
mildly uncomfortable with
the idea of asking anything
more than how are you?
visible tan lines and big eyes,
hourglass and
a mostly untrained sex appeal,
a mostly stifled violence,
mostly mute when questioned,
always suddenly falling
silent.

how are you?

lost, giving me
directions and
grimacing at the
passing time.

“how guys save me in their phone”

August 31, 2018 0

I believe in wormwood,
dried root,
my brother’s ashes
in a silver heart,
a ceramic urn,
a chant, a poem.
datura when the time
is right.

sometimes I do ceremony,
sometimes I just let things pass.
we do that for others:
carry our grief quietly,
we bury things deep
within ourselves.
but sometimes in a fit,
I spill over,
tell you everything.
you said
I like to swim
so I am braised with razor;,
become a carnation lake
at your feet and
you said rain,
I like gardens.
so I condensed and
waited to show off my new arms
lined in fresh alyssum.
my cycle: I always meet them in
winter where my only
light is moon.
my flowers blossom
under the chilled night:
drip a dark nectar and
I am thirsty and
you already know,
I believe in
altar.

I believe in overflowing
chalice. you believe in holding
space for growl,
holding me with
distance.
you watch me lay the
dill in bowl, line the bed
with tourmaline.
run the bath with
chamomile and yarrow.
I am full of tincture now.
I can move like a jaguar:
slow and black and
hungry.
I am hard to see that way.
you said
I am game.

you’ve been watching
jaguars move,
you’ve been memorizing motion,
you said
I’ll be around
and I drape myself in constellation
so you can better see me,
storm so you can better feel
me and I traipse across the forest
floor waiting to be found.
my tonsils growing
chelicerae,
my rib cage growing legs,
my bottom becoming fat
with thread and
I know what you like
and I know that
you are game.

you are writhing
game in tiny, tiny
snowflake threads
hung far above the
ground.
I said let’s switch places
and I know you said
my name. I become the woods
encircling your howl and
you become the kicking,
screaming, young and
drowned.

in winter,
it is long and dark
and hard to contain my
grief. I
am gorged with nectar
and hidden by
the wind.
sometimes we do that for
others: hide our
spines.
you watch me prey;
sip the drip of
the effulgent crescent
bulb I worship
and become the
nightmare you fear.
you become the shivering
deer, caught fly,
gutted bunny on my
jaw.
I become the bath
of blood.
you were right:
we’re the same.
rewind to the night you asked
if I would ever kill someone
if I knew I could get away with
it. the butterfly effect
demands a death.

we become the woods
in dream and you become
my game.

“datura moon”

August 30, 2018 0

it hurt
but not as much
as memory;
not as much as looking back.
death reversed,
they called it.

and not as much as hearing it
on the bridge.
I told you so
not as much as living long
enough to see you go and
slip and live frozen
underneath the giant
white sheaths of ice
where I leave you to unravel
in a dream.
where I leave
you
for the last time.

a spider said to
write it
that was rule number two.
you can call it the
act of taming things.
they’ll think it’s about you.
get them to read it out loud
and curse themselves.

when I danced with her night
that night,
she whispered,
say my name
and you are mine
I woke up in silk
and horns and you were
flying: a bright, blue butterfly
right into my arms,
my web of lines.

“switched places”

August 30, 2018 0

show me how to be an angel,
sky, I think I’ve been there
before before I found
what my hands can do
when they’re not pressed together
anymore:

bring donuts for the office.
offer silence in embrace,
holding space or advice
if they say help me get through
it with action.
paint houses, mend fences.
pull the nails from my true love’s feet:

I placed them everywhere he
dances and I .
smile openly at strangers,
hold the door and inner weeping.
stop repeating anecdotes that expose the
dark recesses I’m engulfed in so I can
stop
passing this on so I can
save face, space for
longing, mystery, idleness.
it’s the surprise that I can’t take.

I invite them to dinner:
ask them to bring a favorite song,
one dish and
a defect they love.
I like strings and female wailing;
chords that are long, surfeit with
unrequited love.
I want it to sound like a heart that’s starving
for admission but will take it slowly
with a snare drum.
I apologize profusely for how bright my
apartment is these days.
I know you expected something darker,
I say,
but I prefer a blinding scripture to the days I
waded in shade and open constriction.
they understand the situation,
my indifference and malignance.
they offer me some gifts to assuage
me and I waste the night
with demands, scrutiny,
verbal inspection.
show me all the books you love.
recite your favorite lines.
I think the world is crawling with caged geniuses
that got lost along the way;
are you a lonely prodigy or
do you only appear to shine with
mine?
I need to see your insides;
palms up to show
you aren’t hiding anything.
are you the predator or prey?
do you believe in martyrs,
more importantly,
do you believe that the devil vets the saints?
I’m no killer, I promise, but I’m not the easy way.
do you believe in chance?
I once watched my fate unfold across my eyelids:
two parties coming together in black and white,
a future that was possible but someone whispered:
it is better to ruin this thing.
I believe in lessons.
I believe in dormancy.
there is no such thing as a mistake.

they show me teeth, piano, films:
Begotten.
I laugh, I’ve seen it:
I show them the drugs I bought,
my darkest cackle and matching garter.
show them a dozen ways to trample gardens
with a notepad.
do you see how I can write the future?
look, I planted bombs everywhere.
I show them demolition.
I show them scribes can craft the wicked.
I show them altars, smitten
eyes and a tongue that’s wound around
the Earth.
I show them what my insides look like:
wounds and trillion year old dirt and
I light three candles,
wear them like a rope.

have you ever let a thought just pass?
one interrupts as I dangle over his
crown.
let me down.
and I repeat to them what I meant to say
the first time we met to explain the danger
of restriction.

it is nothing,
time a longing
and I wait.

“ricochet”

August 30, 2018 0

one dangling finger pointing
to her skin to remind you
how she feels
at night;
smooth like soft-shelled
murder.

“the photograph”

August 30, 2018 0

(Boulder, Colorado, Fall 2013)

where I am laying currently as this
is happening
my chest is a bright, blue door
standing slightly ajar.

I felt like I was floating:
not on a lake or an ocean,
or a stream or my beloved mountain creek but
just lying on top of a big puddle of water in the air
that existed for no explicable reason, much like
all the grief that took me by the tendrils
and dipped me
in the center of the canyon-deep flood that took place
in the core of a six year old girl
who grew up to be giant and made of tinted glass
and a grand total of
no one.

I looked up to see a white flower billowing
above and for once in my life,
I appreciated it’s grace and splendor choosing
to pass by it without disturbance.
I wanted to leave it right where it was;
an illusion of life and growth and flying flora in the sky.
when she touched my heart, I felt a green electrical charge
shoot through my spine
and then,
I became a swaddled baby rocking
on a river of God.

it was the vision that mattered and
some parts I had forgotten, I don’t
write everything down:
I was standing under the moon near a lake and some trees
and miles and miles of stars–he and I both.
suddenly a large white bird fell from the sky, swooped fast to stand and
then lay like it’s prey, floundering on solid sand
just praying to die.
I looked at life through those bird’s eyes
and saw a family before me:
a husband, a woman and child: all me and mine.
I felt myself age; withering skin that turned into tiny wells
of wisdom cut deep in my cheeks,
brows and crown of gray storms, and lips that
kissed only dusty picture frames and hard candy,
and saw myself mourn my own passing.
I was clothed in all white with lilies in my hair
before I sank to the bottom of a lake.
everything was blue.
everything was silent.
everything was moving away from me.
I used to be a sound;
a loud wailing of a door
slamming shut with every one of
my yelps
until I fell back into myself,
until I remembered this vision
and it’s bright, blue current of
wild and divine help:

the bird suddenly came
back to life and flew away
and out came dozens of
blue birds.

“reiki” or “death reversed”
and

“The Woman Who Saw Her Own Death”

Part 1:

August 29, 2018 2