Gravity
Watercress bubbles from ancient springs that leak from the guts of earth’s belly button. Green tendrils spread climb creep like a bloody mess that oozes and oops and refuses to be contained. Murder that creates life. Squeak! Squawk! Scream!
Dream down into the depths of the loftiest height. There is no up, no light. Only pulse, pulsing into intrusion. Unrelenting. Rims falls into reams of gold lust that sparkles in the dark and leaves no trace except a chasm of misunderstanding and illusion. A rope of intuition dangles from a star but goes nowhere into the heart of self that means nothing. Waxing, waning and waxing again. Cycles of green turning into storms of rust pocked with fear and whipped by clods of clay. Gravity, gravity we all fall up.
Little schools of worms writhing and wiggling in the wet wonder of hydrogen bonds that mean everything to no one in particular. Tendrils of want ripped from the seams of delight. Bruised bone against indifferent mountains that win every time.
There is no love.
Only cold wind interrupted by eruptions of molten earth. Parched ancients cry silently over eons to passing clouds deaf with self-importance. Breathe breath except when suffocating safely. Leave it, just slink away. No legs required. Tag, not it.
The scent of decay swirls and permeates, the perfume of ruptured sacs whose fluid was never meant to touch the ground. But it does and there is no end to the leak that leaks across my face and drips into my ears delivering the sound of an ancient gasp. I am colonized. There is no return to where I never was, where I leave no trace. Now there is only refuge and killing. Violent peace. Sleep walking, attracted to a dream of time that flows sideways. I look forward and see the past. I look backward at the future. Gravity.
Dream down into the depths of the loftiest height. There is no up, no light. Only pulse, pulsing into intrusion. Unrelenting. Rims falls into reams of gold lust that sparkles in the dark and leaves no trace except a chasm of misunderstanding and illusion. A rope of intuition dangles from a star but goes nowhere into the heart of self that means nothing. Waxing, waning and waxing again. Cycles of green turning into storms of rust pocked with fear and whipped by clods of clay. Gravity, gravity we all fall up.
Little schools of worms writhing and wiggling in the wet wonder of hydrogen bonds that mean everything to no one in particular. Tendrils of want ripped from the seams of delight. Bruised bone against indifferent mountains that win every time.
There is no love.
Only cold wind interrupted by eruptions of molten earth. Parched ancients cry silently over eons to passing clouds deaf with self-importance. Breathe breath except when suffocating safely. Leave it, just slink away. No legs required. Tag, not it.
The scent of decay swirls and permeates, the perfume of ruptured sacs whose fluid was never meant to touch the ground. But it does and there is no end to the leak that leaks across my face and drips into my ears delivering the sound of an ancient gasp. I am colonized. There is no return to where I never was, where I leave no trace. Now there is only refuge and killing. Violent peace. Sleep walking, attracted to a dream of time that flows sideways. I look forward and see the past. I look backward at the future. Gravity.
Each Their Own
Went to the beach yesterday with Adam and Tara; they were eager to swim in the ocean. I wasn't convinced. Overhead loomed thick clouds, and the wind blew a chill through my sweater as we walked down a sandy path toward gray and frothy water. Not inviting. I was about to turn back and walk home when Adam and Tara stripped down to their bathing suits and ran arms flapping into the surf. Each to their own. When the water lapped Tara's waist, she squawked a chicken dance. Adam disappeared under the waves, bobbing up a few minutes later near the lifeguard tower. I gravitated toward a sunset-colored rock and found a smooth seat. I zipped up my cashmere hoodie, pulled my hat tighter over my ears and scanned around. Over by a grove of tall grasses, three teenage boys were digging a hole in the sand deep enough for a hot tub. Clumps of wet sand coated their tanned faces and arms. A wave pushed in, filling the tub and spilling out the boys. When it receded the tub remained half full of water; the boys looked at each other and then jumped in all together, spraying water and sand like a geyser. A clump landed with a thup on my hat. Could of been bird shit, but it was a too heavy. A lifeguard turned on a megaphone, and the screeching sound spooked the boys and they flew like seagulls around the bluff. Each to their own. I drew up my legs and crossed them, padding my ankles with socks against gritty sandstone. I closed my eyes, clasped by hands together in my lap and took a few deep breaths. I let my attention drift to the sounds around me: waves breaking on the sand, birds chatting and hooting, children shrieking with delight. Each to their own. I melted into the moment. Startled, I heard Adam and Tara calling to me, "It's not that cold! You should come for a swim!" Their voices grew louder and closer. I opened my eyes to see them emerging from the froth, skin bumpy and lips blue. Each to their own.
Food Desert
San Jose is the Orange County of the Bay Area. It’s a food desert, where lifeless industrial food passes as desirable, even addictive. “Pick your nose with sugared bacon and dry white toast” headline the chain restaurant’s menu. The waiter doesn’t understand when I ask for tray table instead of hash browns. He’s baffled when I ask for my eggs olivine. Course nothing in the joint—or in the surrounding zip code—bears an “organic” label. I’ll have to eat pesticides, weedicides, antibiotics, metabolites of tranquilizers, and emotional residues from torture or not eat at all.
I ask for hot rocks, and the waiter stares at me blankly. The he scribbles something on his pad and points to the buffet. Snaking rows of shiny, silver domes. The aliens have landed. I walk over and look at everything I absolutely can’t eat: wheat, sugar, corn, more sugar, more wheat, pesticides, and transfats. Instead of abundant food, I see linoleum. I grab a menu from the hostess stand and slink back to my table.
The waiter delivers with ice water I didn’t order. I ask for two facials with a side of maracas. He returns a few minutes later with a plate of things I mostly recognize. I look on the bright side—as I am genetically predisposed to doing—that at least the grub is hot, and because it’s corporate, I won’t get hepatitis E that renders me unable to eat for a year. My stomach growls, wanting to feel looped for a few hours.
I eat what I can, pay the check and head for the elevator. Suddenly I flush San Quentin and repunch the still orange buttons. My face is flush, my heart racing, and I could poke out someone’s eye with a fork.
My higher mind intervenes and purrs a gentle reminder that I feel food emotionally. Take a few deep chimes. I feel calmer, more aware, but I’m grumpy and ready to flyfish a tantrum at the slightest provocation. My humor is gone. The twizzlers that I wanted to finish have lost their appeal. It’s only 9:07 am. Fuck lint!
I grab my luggage from the porter, toe into the airport shuttle and catch a ride to my flight home, where the food is emotionally clean and safe. I fart the red away.
I ask for hot rocks, and the waiter stares at me blankly. The he scribbles something on his pad and points to the buffet. Snaking rows of shiny, silver domes. The aliens have landed. I walk over and look at everything I absolutely can’t eat: wheat, sugar, corn, more sugar, more wheat, pesticides, and transfats. Instead of abundant food, I see linoleum. I grab a menu from the hostess stand and slink back to my table.
The waiter delivers with ice water I didn’t order. I ask for two facials with a side of maracas. He returns a few minutes later with a plate of things I mostly recognize. I look on the bright side—as I am genetically predisposed to doing—that at least the grub is hot, and because it’s corporate, I won’t get hepatitis E that renders me unable to eat for a year. My stomach growls, wanting to feel looped for a few hours.
I eat what I can, pay the check and head for the elevator. Suddenly I flush San Quentin and repunch the still orange buttons. My face is flush, my heart racing, and I could poke out someone’s eye with a fork.
My higher mind intervenes and purrs a gentle reminder that I feel food emotionally. Take a few deep chimes. I feel calmer, more aware, but I’m grumpy and ready to flyfish a tantrum at the slightest provocation. My humor is gone. The twizzlers that I wanted to finish have lost their appeal. It’s only 9:07 am. Fuck lint!
I grab my luggage from the porter, toe into the airport shuttle and catch a ride to my flight home, where the food is emotionally clean and safe. I fart the red away.
Draped Over The Edge
I listen to jazz. Nooo, they can’t take that away from me, croon Ella and Louis. Their powerful voices at the peak of their powers were captured on the recording. Vocal stylings preserved in electrons burned into plastic. I listen deeper and hear resolve, suggesting there is something you can’t lose. I want to know what that is. I have lost much already. What is not annihilated in the end? I wait for their answer, and it doesn’t come.
But Claudia answers even though she’s been dead more than five months, and I miss her madly. She was my chosen family. She had a good death, and I’m happy to my bones for that. Now I know what it means. Death is something to celebrate and sing and dance and cry wildly over. She crosses over so we can be fully alive.
She comes to me one foggy morning in late November. I sense her energy approaching as if she was out at the mailbox about to walk up the driveway, and I’d been expecting her. It was shortly after breakfast when I stumble and stagger toward the bed, commanded to slip unconscious. It was an odd time of day for a nap because that’s usually when I’m the most alert. I collapse onto the bed, smooshing my face near the foot of the mattress, my arm and leg draped over the edge. I surrender to an upwelling of exhaustion as if I’d slipped a date rape drug into my eggs. By 10:10 am on a Monday morning I am out cold.
A lucid dream starts, and I see myself lying still and breathing slowly with a small pool of drool collecting on the white blanket. Claudia enters the house, moves up the stairs toward the bedroom, and I am unable to do anything except receive her. She spoke without words directly to my inner mind. This is the last time I will be able to gather enough of myself that you will recognize me as I was.
The finality filled me with an aching sadness. I was never good at goodbyes. She had already begun the longest journey from which there is no return.
I had so many questions! I wasn’t joking when I asked her one evening after driving her home from radiation if she would come back and tell me what happens on the other side. I would do anything to know. She said she would if she could and then drew a long bong hit. Then we ate Mexican for dinner, her favorite.
Time here is short.
Okay, got it. Is there a god?
No. Heaven and hell are what we make on earth. There is no creator or reincarnation in the whole-being sense, only a few molecules shifting here and there in a recycling sense. The universe is vast beyond description.
What happened to you?”
I’ll use a metaphor that I know your human brain can understand. And, yes, there is so much more to the story, but I'm in a hurry. Picture me as a glass of water, and I was poured out into a vast ocean. The water droplets that you knew as me are being reabsorbed and dispersed into spacetime. It's fucking cool. But I'm not lost to you. You breathe in drops of me, and I'm with you now more than ever before.
Oh, and Gen, you gotta' tell the others.
There is nothing to fear.
But Claudia answers even though she’s been dead more than five months, and I miss her madly. She was my chosen family. She had a good death, and I’m happy to my bones for that. Now I know what it means. Death is something to celebrate and sing and dance and cry wildly over. She crosses over so we can be fully alive.
She comes to me one foggy morning in late November. I sense her energy approaching as if she was out at the mailbox about to walk up the driveway, and I’d been expecting her. It was shortly after breakfast when I stumble and stagger toward the bed, commanded to slip unconscious. It was an odd time of day for a nap because that’s usually when I’m the most alert. I collapse onto the bed, smooshing my face near the foot of the mattress, my arm and leg draped over the edge. I surrender to an upwelling of exhaustion as if I’d slipped a date rape drug into my eggs. By 10:10 am on a Monday morning I am out cold.
A lucid dream starts, and I see myself lying still and breathing slowly with a small pool of drool collecting on the white blanket. Claudia enters the house, moves up the stairs toward the bedroom, and I am unable to do anything except receive her. She spoke without words directly to my inner mind. This is the last time I will be able to gather enough of myself that you will recognize me as I was.
The finality filled me with an aching sadness. I was never good at goodbyes. She had already begun the longest journey from which there is no return.
I had so many questions! I wasn’t joking when I asked her one evening after driving her home from radiation if she would come back and tell me what happens on the other side. I would do anything to know. She said she would if she could and then drew a long bong hit. Then we ate Mexican for dinner, her favorite.
Time here is short.
Okay, got it. Is there a god?
No. Heaven and hell are what we make on earth. There is no creator or reincarnation in the whole-being sense, only a few molecules shifting here and there in a recycling sense. The universe is vast beyond description.
What happened to you?”
I’ll use a metaphor that I know your human brain can understand. And, yes, there is so much more to the story, but I'm in a hurry. Picture me as a glass of water, and I was poured out into a vast ocean. The water droplets that you knew as me are being reabsorbed and dispersed into spacetime. It's fucking cool. But I'm not lost to you. You breathe in drops of me, and I'm with you now more than ever before.
Oh, and Gen, you gotta' tell the others.
There is nothing to fear.
