mamas bathroom
i turn on the lamp in mamas bathroom. its got a twisty key knob. its got crystals hanging on it and an angel instead of a stem. theres two sinks in there, and one is papas and one is mamas. theres underwear and pajamas and towels on the floor and lots of soaps shaped like hearts and seashells and angel whose face melt off 'cuz somebody wash their hands one time. theres real seashells. i take off my shirt and my shoes and i try on seashells like a bra. i get a comb stuck in my hair. i try on the big amythyst jewel from mamas big jewel box, the one i want but won't ask for it 'cuz i always take mamas best stuff and she can't say no to me. i feel better when i am in mamas bathroom. there is a crystal as big as my head in the shower. the showers got diagonal tiles and three glass windows, one is the door, they are gray and there's a plant, a stripe-y bromeliad in there, and it gets water when i take a shower. i think its happy even though its inside. theres two showers in the shower. one is papas and one is mamas. i use my own soap its lavender. the water comes out funny. its too hot at first, and then its too cold. too cold is better today, but mostly i like it too hot. It comes out not like a lot of little sprays but like one big waterfall. Its cold and my whole body starts to shaking and it makes me breathe fast like a hot puppy.
Can't cut nothing
Cut me open. Spread me out on the table. Here I'll pick through my bones.
The hot white sun beats down hiding nothing. Whats left when all these organs and thoughts, when all these ropes come untied?
Nothing.
Nothing is an egg. When I reside in the nothing and the needing nothing, then everything is so real I become it and it becomes me before I have a choice. This is how it happens: Once I walked the sidewalk in NE Portland, back home from the teahouse. A seagull flew overhead and cried a shrill cry. It was so loud I thought it was coming out of my chest. I leaned against a chainlink fence to keep me steady. The fence felt so good, like the only ground in the universe, I didn't feel like letting go. I didn't know why I would go home, or who would be going there, and not one place I felt allowed. Who is all this for? Is it all for nothing? If all that is left is nothing, why am I here? This frightens me. I will remain anyway, empty. This emptiness frightens my mother and it frightens my father. It frightens my sister and it frightens my lover. Actually, it does not frighten me at all. All my acquaintances, since I have not many friends, since I frighten them all away, all my acquaintances, look at me when I am empty and they see dark spots in a rippleless pond and then they stain me with them. I've let in a lot of stains lately. So,
cut me open.
I'm packing today. I sort cables into boxes. I detune my harp for the flight, the pressure is too high on airplanes, the strings might snap or tug too hard at the heartboard. People want to see me before I go. I do not want to see myself. So,
cut me open. Spread all my guts and twisted intestines beside my half-thumping eloping galloping heart that tries to leap off the table. Spread my sweaters and my rose quartz beads and my bells and all the quarters i've collected, all the teas and tinctures and vitamins I thought would fix me, all the paintbrushes and pages torn, spread all my things out all over the floor. What do I have? Nothing. What have I gained? Nothing. What have I improved? Depends. What have I learned? I know nothing. I still know nothing. I still am nothing. I still am everything. Everything is the same. Everything is still as full of magic as ever. And I am still as empty.
I must clear the air. I must clear more ground. I must clean my room. I must brush my hair. But I won't, I just pin it up again.
I hang my comforter out on the line. I feel and perform this half-assed. I put my brand new hardly touched keyboard back in its box with much difficulty. The styrofoam corners only fit one angle and they must all be held on straight while the keyboard slides into the box entirely level or there is no fit. I need five arms. I take out the compost. The pitchfork breaks immediately. The compost pile is healthy. I say a prayer that its richness will inspire my parents to sow the seeds they need to sow. I cover it back up with the tarp I tore from daddys jaw.
Do you know how I pack? I pack with coffee and alcohol. I try to eat celery sticks in between, and drink sips of water when I think it, saying a prayer and a blessing for my insanity. I listen to crazy drum and bass usually reserved for the most high times. Today it works, so I am okay with it. Funny, I try to empty and the only thing I want is poison. I want to want nothing. I'm still only nothing. I'm tired of something. I'm ready for nothing, so
cut me open. Lay me out in the secret-spilling sun. untie all these nasty cords. Let go every knotting, darning finger. Cut me open, I fear not what I'll see, I'll see the bottom looking back up at me. You can't cut nothing. I hold the bone needle, sharp as a gulls cry, and silk thread, soft as a blessing, here, with imaginary fingers I hold together out of thin air, because I am nothing and everything and I said so.
The hot white sun beats down hiding nothing. Whats left when all these organs and thoughts, when all these ropes come untied?
Nothing.
Nothing is an egg. When I reside in the nothing and the needing nothing, then everything is so real I become it and it becomes me before I have a choice. This is how it happens: Once I walked the sidewalk in NE Portland, back home from the teahouse. A seagull flew overhead and cried a shrill cry. It was so loud I thought it was coming out of my chest. I leaned against a chainlink fence to keep me steady. The fence felt so good, like the only ground in the universe, I didn't feel like letting go. I didn't know why I would go home, or who would be going there, and not one place I felt allowed. Who is all this for? Is it all for nothing? If all that is left is nothing, why am I here? This frightens me. I will remain anyway, empty. This emptiness frightens my mother and it frightens my father. It frightens my sister and it frightens my lover. Actually, it does not frighten me at all. All my acquaintances, since I have not many friends, since I frighten them all away, all my acquaintances, look at me when I am empty and they see dark spots in a rippleless pond and then they stain me with them. I've let in a lot of stains lately. So,
cut me open.
I'm packing today. I sort cables into boxes. I detune my harp for the flight, the pressure is too high on airplanes, the strings might snap or tug too hard at the heartboard. People want to see me before I go. I do not want to see myself. So,
cut me open. Spread all my guts and twisted intestines beside my half-thumping eloping galloping heart that tries to leap off the table. Spread my sweaters and my rose quartz beads and my bells and all the quarters i've collected, all the teas and tinctures and vitamins I thought would fix me, all the paintbrushes and pages torn, spread all my things out all over the floor. What do I have? Nothing. What have I gained? Nothing. What have I improved? Depends. What have I learned? I know nothing. I still know nothing. I still am nothing. I still am everything. Everything is the same. Everything is still as full of magic as ever. And I am still as empty.
I must clear the air. I must clear more ground. I must clean my room. I must brush my hair. But I won't, I just pin it up again.
I hang my comforter out on the line. I feel and perform this half-assed. I put my brand new hardly touched keyboard back in its box with much difficulty. The styrofoam corners only fit one angle and they must all be held on straight while the keyboard slides into the box entirely level or there is no fit. I need five arms. I take out the compost. The pitchfork breaks immediately. The compost pile is healthy. I say a prayer that its richness will inspire my parents to sow the seeds they need to sow. I cover it back up with the tarp I tore from daddys jaw.
Do you know how I pack? I pack with coffee and alcohol. I try to eat celery sticks in between, and drink sips of water when I think it, saying a prayer and a blessing for my insanity. I listen to crazy drum and bass usually reserved for the most high times. Today it works, so I am okay with it. Funny, I try to empty and the only thing I want is poison. I want to want nothing. I'm still only nothing. I'm tired of something. I'm ready for nothing, so
cut me open. Lay me out in the secret-spilling sun. untie all these nasty cords. Let go every knotting, darning finger. Cut me open, I fear not what I'll see, I'll see the bottom looking back up at me. You can't cut nothing. I hold the bone needle, sharp as a gulls cry, and silk thread, soft as a blessing, here, with imaginary fingers I hold together out of thin air, because I am nothing and everything and I said so.
GYMNASIUM
Of Tory, and of icy waterfalls, and of running around on an indoor track. When I see him for the first time now, we are someplace between wet stones and basketball courts. This is home, where we've always resided. Behind me on my stony throne is the cool rush of frothing crushing dropping and churning. The soles of my feet grind into and beneath a rocky path so the cool mud bubbles up between my toes, I let this motion answer his unasked question. Who are you now? Corey whom in real life I do not know approaches, asks if I've accepted Tory's invitation and I do not know. C'mon man, aren't you going to ask her? Corey calls, across the court where faceless bodies move like disorganized molecules, boys can never resist the challenges of other boys. And then Tory calls to me, Can I take you out for dinner tomorrow night? I am unwilling to let such vulnerability fly in such a public place, so I set off weaving through the gymnasium to find him face to face. I move around the crowd, on tiptoe since I'm short, to see over everybody's heads. I make my way to a balcony where I find him leaning against the railing. It is surprising to see his eyes making a thorough search of mine, it is really him, he is really asking. Of course, I answer. He breathes relief. I breathe home.
HE PICKED A PECK OF PICKLED PEPPERS AS I LOOKED ON, AGHAST
I have found out where the poor poor thing went wrong and I try on sorry for breathing firey flashlights leaving no skin on. Red orange yellow green blue green blue, red orange yellow green blue, red red red red red.
But on with the flashlight and his twisted head screws on like a lightbulb where the wiring got all wrong and impulses and wildfires short circuit emptiness rattles around and around and around. Red orange yellow yellow yellow red red yellow red red red red.
Where have you gone, precious being, and why? Blue green blue green blue. What emptiness has filled you dry? Green light green light green.
it is like you say, I say, humorless, blank and afraid. He makes me wait, blank stare vacancy vacancy vacancy while he loses things and pretends to us both he is only human when I know better. Mama tries to pull that shit on me all the time and I set fire to the kitchen, thats right, fire fire fire. I know bullshit and I know nobody grows old and dies unless they let in the sneaky fish that are lies lies lies, of time, of denial of wind and waves and leaf veins and rainbow fire fire fire.
I don't want to be mountainous but here I am, holding his hand and trying not to strangle him while he tries to teach me about dumbing and dulling and nulling and the lullaby of conformism.
Don't try to explain away my visions with your science. So you talked politics with some veterans at Starbucks? So you tell me One might need to spend more time in meditation? So you think that is not obvious and pointed and why do you take drugs, you ask, when its been a year at the least and you have no answer to my question whose answer would devour whats devouring you? Fire fire fire!
So, are you quite adult now? So, are your loafers the same size and style as the ones your father wore? Fire fire fire!
From my fridge he helped himself to some of papas pickled peppers without asking and my jaw dropped, head spun, inconceivable! If papa'd seen that he'd be red red red and get large large large and chest-thump thump thumping as an ape.
You say you fell derailed from a path you knew and can't recall. You think you can't retrace your steps, or maybe you don't want to. Blame your fathers thin voice. Blame your mothers thin milk. Blame the white hot heat of a little pill you took last summer.
How many mirrors can you hold up to my face at once? I only have three eyes. I knew it long ago, that white hot fire that smiles everywhere and makes blood shimmer and boil and lightning fly from my crown and from my fingertips and from between my thighs. And as venomous as the rabbit hole I fell into which fell into me was, it is what I want back what I was and what I know now as real and now know everything is dull and plastic unless I breathe light into it with my good lungs. But I have my good lungs and that makes me the wind and questions and only certain about rocks I cannot lift of which there are very few.
I am grateful that you have seen my anger and annoyed that you have not felt it. I am grateful that I can see the wisdom in my family's special brand of insanity. I am grateful that you will be out of my hair eventually. I am sad to see you resize your world to fit inside a shoebox, and I am grateful it cannot hold me.
Please, take your 5-HTP and trust trust trust great spirit to replenish your happy stores. Please friend, find your good lungs.
But on with the flashlight and his twisted head screws on like a lightbulb where the wiring got all wrong and impulses and wildfires short circuit emptiness rattles around and around and around. Red orange yellow yellow yellow red red yellow red red red red.
Where have you gone, precious being, and why? Blue green blue green blue. What emptiness has filled you dry? Green light green light green.
it is like you say, I say, humorless, blank and afraid. He makes me wait, blank stare vacancy vacancy vacancy while he loses things and pretends to us both he is only human when I know better. Mama tries to pull that shit on me all the time and I set fire to the kitchen, thats right, fire fire fire. I know bullshit and I know nobody grows old and dies unless they let in the sneaky fish that are lies lies lies, of time, of denial of wind and waves and leaf veins and rainbow fire fire fire.
I don't want to be mountainous but here I am, holding his hand and trying not to strangle him while he tries to teach me about dumbing and dulling and nulling and the lullaby of conformism.
Don't try to explain away my visions with your science. So you talked politics with some veterans at Starbucks? So you tell me One might need to spend more time in meditation? So you think that is not obvious and pointed and why do you take drugs, you ask, when its been a year at the least and you have no answer to my question whose answer would devour whats devouring you? Fire fire fire!
So, are you quite adult now? So, are your loafers the same size and style as the ones your father wore? Fire fire fire!
From my fridge he helped himself to some of papas pickled peppers without asking and my jaw dropped, head spun, inconceivable! If papa'd seen that he'd be red red red and get large large large and chest-thump thump thumping as an ape.
You say you fell derailed from a path you knew and can't recall. You think you can't retrace your steps, or maybe you don't want to. Blame your fathers thin voice. Blame your mothers thin milk. Blame the white hot heat of a little pill you took last summer.
How many mirrors can you hold up to my face at once? I only have three eyes. I knew it long ago, that white hot fire that smiles everywhere and makes blood shimmer and boil and lightning fly from my crown and from my fingertips and from between my thighs. And as venomous as the rabbit hole I fell into which fell into me was, it is what I want back what I was and what I know now as real and now know everything is dull and plastic unless I breathe light into it with my good lungs. But I have my good lungs and that makes me the wind and questions and only certain about rocks I cannot lift of which there are very few.
I am grateful that you have seen my anger and annoyed that you have not felt it. I am grateful that I can see the wisdom in my family's special brand of insanity. I am grateful that you will be out of my hair eventually. I am sad to see you resize your world to fit inside a shoebox, and I am grateful it cannot hold me.
Please, take your 5-HTP and trust trust trust great spirit to replenish your happy stores. Please friend, find your good lungs.
Sleeves
Did you know, you're not lying next to me but with the way I folded to fit inside Tory's spoon? Did you know, you're not kissing me but the inside out of every kiss I've ever tasted? Did you know, you're not talking with me but with the opposition to everything my mother tells me? Did you know, you're not walking with me but with the stride I tampered and slowed so I could smell his sweat? Did you know, you're not holding me because I'm whatever you want to be holding? Did you know, I love you, and it means something different every time?
By the time I've found my way into your crevices, I'm walking in step with you, I'm making some sense, I'll be long gone. I'll be trying to fit myself against another rough, angular shape.
When the black clouds sweep the sky and the storm opens his great jaw to roar, he's not ravaging me but the inside out of the last billion landscapes he's ever ravaged. And when I walk alone, it's not me who's alone, but the incessant buzzing of bees and the timid chamomile buds and the mums and the mallows all brushing sleeves and nodding.
By the time I've found my way into your crevices, I'm walking in step with you, I'm making some sense, I'll be long gone. I'll be trying to fit myself against another rough, angular shape.
When the black clouds sweep the sky and the storm opens his great jaw to roar, he's not ravaging me but the inside out of the last billion landscapes he's ever ravaged. And when I walk alone, it's not me who's alone, but the incessant buzzing of bees and the timid chamomile buds and the mums and the mallows all brushing sleeves and nodding.
Driving
I'm writing this while I'm driving along a winding cliff in the rain. The black road slithers under my dads car and everything over the edge is all white. I'm alone. A blank page. It's warm in here and dry, and my lips are chapped and I'm playing a game sneaking glances at my sloppy cursive, making sure my lines aren't overlapping, jumbling up and smacking each other senseless.
Suddenly, I'm bumping over the white children holding hands.
Sometimes I think I don't take driving seriously enough. Right now, this very instant, I could simply swivel my wrists to swerve into that great white page,which is sometimes florescent windows and sometimes a deserted schoolyard and sometimes just nothing. And then these strangers witness my crash and burn when really I just keep on flying toward the sun in a new blue fur coat.
On the dash the plastic face of the speedometer is all greasy with rainbows and quite beautiful. I wonder what he thinks of me, whether he'll take me back into his folds, his warm bat cloak and rub my cheeks with his thumbs, him glowing and me blushing pink all over. So I text him but the stairs flipped upside down and I can't quite reach him. His shadow is near though, and flipping around in this giant blanket room. Is that him walking backwards along the speedometer? I'm inside out a disco ball since every way I look mirrors and windows, framed panes all look the same, and I worry, Maybe I'm just driving in reverse but I don't know it.
I'm driving slowly down a long road, the same drive I drive everyday, past storefronts that all look the same, and the weather is the same hazy nothing with the quality of heaviness about to drain. Everything the same angle and distance from me, rearview, dashboard, asphalt, storefronts, squeaky blue plastic seat, sun,lack of air, the smell of the boy like sweet almonds, the staircase. I'm just a head floating in place and a great hand is turning a great globe around me, stopping in near imperceptible clicks for me to register- black bowler hat, a child tugging his mothers sleeve, a shadow that's running away from his body, and around the corner toward the sun.
I'm not really moving, everything else is swirling and making faces at me in all these mirrors. I'm driving slow as if I know I'm driving toward his refrigerator arms, empty space and he won't be able to look me in the eye. We'll both deny it's true.
Suddenly, I'm bumping over the white children holding hands.
Sometimes I think I don't take driving seriously enough. Right now, this very instant, I could simply swivel my wrists to swerve into that great white page,which is sometimes florescent windows and sometimes a deserted schoolyard and sometimes just nothing. And then these strangers witness my crash and burn when really I just keep on flying toward the sun in a new blue fur coat.
On the dash the plastic face of the speedometer is all greasy with rainbows and quite beautiful. I wonder what he thinks of me, whether he'll take me back into his folds, his warm bat cloak and rub my cheeks with his thumbs, him glowing and me blushing pink all over. So I text him but the stairs flipped upside down and I can't quite reach him. His shadow is near though, and flipping around in this giant blanket room. Is that him walking backwards along the speedometer? I'm inside out a disco ball since every way I look mirrors and windows, framed panes all look the same, and I worry, Maybe I'm just driving in reverse but I don't know it.
I'm driving slowly down a long road, the same drive I drive everyday, past storefronts that all look the same, and the weather is the same hazy nothing with the quality of heaviness about to drain. Everything the same angle and distance from me, rearview, dashboard, asphalt, storefronts, squeaky blue plastic seat, sun,lack of air, the smell of the boy like sweet almonds, the staircase. I'm just a head floating in place and a great hand is turning a great globe around me, stopping in near imperceptible clicks for me to register- black bowler hat, a child tugging his mothers sleeve, a shadow that's running away from his body, and around the corner toward the sun.
I'm not really moving, everything else is swirling and making faces at me in all these mirrors. I'm driving slow as if I know I'm driving toward his refrigerator arms, empty space and he won't be able to look me in the eye. We'll both deny it's true.
ice the muse ick
a i o d
c f e
m e e
a m r
y t i
h d t
z e
i n h
n m i a
g u g n
s h k
e t
y
i s e
c o w
k w
u
n
d
a may zing
ice the muse ick
of mid night sow und
deer t hank yew
c f e
m e e
a m r
y t i
h d t
z e
i n h
n m i a
g u g n
s h k
e t
y
i s e
c o w
k w
u
n
d
a may zing
ice the muse ick
of mid night sow und
deer t hank yew
Planting an Onion, a Nun Qwan Yin
Out of the bowels of the vegetable drawer, all frothy frosted blue and white, and with green towers tongues like umbilical cords emerging from its own depths, an onion wakes. All twisted up in see-through plastic, my indelicate, ruddy hands pluck it from its waiting chamber, and with lazy disappointment, set it beside the kitchen sink.
I promise mama I'll only leave it 'til tomorrow, that I'll plant it in the garden. My will is strong, my will is great, I will plant this bulb and remember myself as a child of this earth, and of God.
A child of earth, and sky, that is what I am. A child of earth, and sky, that is what you are, little onion. A child of earth and sky, that is what you are, beautiful ladies of the Collective Underground.
So the next morning I take the plastic bag of living onion in my two hands out to the patch of dirt I softened months ago, where one beet decided to grow alone, I dig a hole and bury the onion.
A child of earth, and sky, that is what you are, little phenomenon, little onion. And as my fingers tremble and scratch at the mysterious soil, flicking scurrying beetles and discovering the frail spirals of snail casings, I know myself as a child of earth and sky.
Hopscotch the tongues of sun all over my gossip,glass arms turning real, Pinocchio pops open a coke. And while you're at it, mama calls down, plant these whats wheres whens and hows. So I do, in a ring around the onion.
Child of earth and sky, now held encircled by garlics strong, odorous arm. And I continuously shake my limbs where flies keep landing, children of earth, and sky.
The lettuce is all wilty so I water, even though it's midday and I run the risk of sunburn. The hose has a spray nozzle attached, which turns watering from a graceful act to a piss in the dirt, bullet the lizards and leaves them full of holes. The skin here greedily milks it anyhow.
So, Children of earth and sky, now drunk on water, swollen and lazyhappy, child of eatha dn sky having plugged in,put to bed, another,plugged in put to bed your own bones. You are powerful, child, beautiful, child, needed, child, and child, all is forgiven. I am.
Inside, I read of lucid dreaming.
The next night, I'm lying in bed. I can't sleep but I know my brain and body need rest. I ask for a healing vision. A nun, in black and white, ringed in beams of her own face, rabbit electric with prayers coming out all sides and glowing eyes, seven paper thin window pairs and mountain robes that do not budge in the windshield wipers of my imagination. And, low and behold, she speaks
without moving her lips. And what it means I don't know, but fuck me, it seems important. She says, you will not be punished. You will not be rewarded. Vague much?
Child of earth, you will not be punished.
Child of sky, you will not be rewarded.
And the nun Kwan Yin with her many symmetries, seven heads and seven hands encircling her, encircling us, protecting my Collective Underground, wise and stern and bright and certain, graceful and fearsome, solid and holy, black and white, my lady of earth and sky, she lingers. I know she is more than phantom, she is flesh, and I rest, knowing that my onion is safe.
I promise mama I'll only leave it 'til tomorrow, that I'll plant it in the garden. My will is strong, my will is great, I will plant this bulb and remember myself as a child of this earth, and of God.
A child of earth, and sky, that is what I am. A child of earth, and sky, that is what you are, little onion. A child of earth and sky, that is what you are, beautiful ladies of the Collective Underground.
So the next morning I take the plastic bag of living onion in my two hands out to the patch of dirt I softened months ago, where one beet decided to grow alone, I dig a hole and bury the onion.
A child of earth, and sky, that is what you are, little phenomenon, little onion. And as my fingers tremble and scratch at the mysterious soil, flicking scurrying beetles and discovering the frail spirals of snail casings, I know myself as a child of earth and sky.
Hopscotch the tongues of sun all over my gossip,glass arms turning real, Pinocchio pops open a coke. And while you're at it, mama calls down, plant these whats wheres whens and hows. So I do, in a ring around the onion.
Child of earth and sky, now held encircled by garlics strong, odorous arm. And I continuously shake my limbs where flies keep landing, children of earth, and sky.
The lettuce is all wilty so I water, even though it's midday and I run the risk of sunburn. The hose has a spray nozzle attached, which turns watering from a graceful act to a piss in the dirt, bullet the lizards and leaves them full of holes. The skin here greedily milks it anyhow.
So, Children of earth and sky, now drunk on water, swollen and lazyhappy, child of eatha dn sky having plugged in,put to bed, another,plugged in put to bed your own bones. You are powerful, child, beautiful, child, needed, child, and child, all is forgiven. I am.
Inside, I read of lucid dreaming.
The next night, I'm lying in bed. I can't sleep but I know my brain and body need rest. I ask for a healing vision. A nun, in black and white, ringed in beams of her own face, rabbit electric with prayers coming out all sides and glowing eyes, seven paper thin window pairs and mountain robes that do not budge in the windshield wipers of my imagination. And, low and behold, she speaks
without moving her lips. And what it means I don't know, but fuck me, it seems important. She says, you will not be punished. You will not be rewarded. Vague much?
Child of earth, you will not be punished.
Child of sky, you will not be rewarded.
And the nun Kwan Yin with her many symmetries, seven heads and seven hands encircling her, encircling us, protecting my Collective Underground, wise and stern and bright and certain, graceful and fearsome, solid and holy, black and white, my lady of earth and sky, she lingers. I know she is more than phantom, she is flesh, and I rest, knowing that my onion is safe.
Strange math
And angular limbs, rough skin roughly hewn, bearded with mosses and salted with lichen. Spine all around and pleated ledges spiral up and up and up.
My fingers search, flashlights, alight, light up here and here and here. Overlapping, underlapping lips and ridges, twisted sheets, swelling doorknobs, keyholes, smiles, frowns, making funny faces at me.
I weave myself in and out your branches, tied in knots my being feasts legs arms neck braids splaying. Fitting in and around and molding to your creases and arcs is the only way to know your slow dance from the inside out.
Laying in the curve between your great neck and shoulder, you shoulder my weight, the gravity of being. The wind laughs in your hair.
There is a strange math at work, symmetries only felt or possibly heard by my cheek and palm. Your resinous odor filling all cavities.
I listen to the soft crinkling of your eyes as ants make their way to camp in your armpit.
My fingers search, flashlights, alight, light up here and here and here. Overlapping, underlapping lips and ridges, twisted sheets, swelling doorknobs, keyholes, smiles, frowns, making funny faces at me.
I weave myself in and out your branches, tied in knots my being feasts legs arms neck braids splaying. Fitting in and around and molding to your creases and arcs is the only way to know your slow dance from the inside out.
Laying in the curve between your great neck and shoulder, you shoulder my weight, the gravity of being. The wind laughs in your hair.
There is a strange math at work, symmetries only felt or possibly heard by my cheek and palm. Your resinous odor filling all cavities.
I listen to the soft crinkling of your eyes as ants make their way to camp in your armpit.
Close up
I was built for lolling about in meadows, pooling sunshine, chest and cheek to the grass, one eye so close my lashes tickle, exploring the tiny worlds everpresent with two walking fingers. Ear low to the ground I hear the murmurs of the soil, and beetles knees squeaking.
There is a bubbling plant, fanfolded leaves that grows like a weed up and down this hillside, and nobody knows it. But listen to its gushing song, the way it revels in being alive and all the generous moods of the sun. the curious way the wind wakes it, lifting like cloudscapes and waves underneath. Raw and in love, ready for anything and yet here is a sensitivity like feeling the ridges of your fingertips as you pet silk.
Take it easy, baby.
Take it easy.
There is a bubbling plant, fanfolded leaves that grows like a weed up and down this hillside, and nobody knows it. But listen to its gushing song, the way it revels in being alive and all the generous moods of the sun. the curious way the wind wakes it, lifting like cloudscapes and waves underneath. Raw and in love, ready for anything and yet here is a sensitivity like feeling the ridges of your fingertips as you pet silk.
Take it easy, baby.
Take it easy.
Turning Socks Rightside Out
Pajamas in the greenhouse so I fingerprints with a sneak out the window. Exotic orchids perfume in my ears the intoxication of wild sex. I'll abuse the day if I keep too many lemons in my pockets, so today i'm just sifting feathers, doing laundry, turning socks rightside out. Cradles me in a shovel to a heap on the floor. But here the carpet is prickly mustache brushing my upper lip.
I don't know the plants here in Hawai'i, none seem to be talking to me. Perhaps they need flute offerings. It's like ecstasy mixed with squares here, crew cut lawns side by side with vagina discovery, so foreign to me, like behind a glass case and I don't want to buy a gun anyway. I'm afraid to get bulletproof, thats what. No way, things too specific, like the texture of paper towels, will haunt you forever.
What happened to greenhouse? I'm inside dreamcatcher again and hollowed out spider waiting for flies. A lounge chair doesn't care but my whale songs do. Inflatable pool is swimming in my belly missing being blind. Now its cold baths if you took acid waiting and forgot wet floor, broken nose. And grids, fuck, always buzzing green and purple, where the mean lady I hide her in the furnace. Haha! I caught you! Out the other end at the other furnace on Campaign Street! A dark pillar follower, shadow man! I see you!
Pillow fear is aware now, I can look you in the eye, whipper! Floodgates open now! Thats where the evil toilet comes from too, the vomit ice cream cone. My own chess game populated by Reese Whitherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland. Fuck you.
I take back my kingdom, I populate my prison with angels and sugar cubes and pandas, and other ferns.
I don't know the plants here in Hawai'i, none seem to be talking to me. Perhaps they need flute offerings. It's like ecstasy mixed with squares here, crew cut lawns side by side with vagina discovery, so foreign to me, like behind a glass case and I don't want to buy a gun anyway. I'm afraid to get bulletproof, thats what. No way, things too specific, like the texture of paper towels, will haunt you forever.
What happened to greenhouse? I'm inside dreamcatcher again and hollowed out spider waiting for flies. A lounge chair doesn't care but my whale songs do. Inflatable pool is swimming in my belly missing being blind. Now its cold baths if you took acid waiting and forgot wet floor, broken nose. And grids, fuck, always buzzing green and purple, where the mean lady I hide her in the furnace. Haha! I caught you! Out the other end at the other furnace on Campaign Street! A dark pillar follower, shadow man! I see you!
Pillow fear is aware now, I can look you in the eye, whipper! Floodgates open now! Thats where the evil toilet comes from too, the vomit ice cream cone. My own chess game populated by Reese Whitherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland. Fuck you.
I take back my kingdom, I populate my prison with angels and sugar cubes and pandas, and other ferns.
Holy Goalie
Shadows of things made mostly of holes. Chain link fence, chicken wire, spider web, soccer net. My favorite are balloon shadows, they drop soggy blobs of color where they fall.
I'm lying in the grass, in a soccer goal. I have arrived, I am victory. The goal net has holes in it, I mean, extra holes- the plastic rope has frayed and split off in parts, leaving large, unorganized, unplanned holes. Ones that might let something unexpected, uninvited in,or out. In some places it is haphazardly knotted back together, here a corner where seven sections all gave in together and have been tied together at a single point. There, it is like a wheel and not a series of wavering squares like the rest.
I'm lying in this holy goal, a giant dreamcatcher, a great fishnet. Waiting for a dream fish, waiting for answers. I'm lying here, I'm lying to myself. I don't know what I want, I keep slipping in and out of certainty. I fake the feeling of deserving this bliss, I am not submerged in it, I am not equal to it. I am lying about what I want, I don't want sex,I don't want drugs. I'm just like everybody else, I only want love, to love and to be loved.
I'm lying in the grass, in a soccer goal. I have arrived, I am victory. The goal net has holes in it, I mean, extra holes- the plastic rope has frayed and split off in parts, leaving large, unorganized, unplanned holes. Ones that might let something unexpected, uninvited in,or out. In some places it is haphazardly knotted back together, here a corner where seven sections all gave in together and have been tied together at a single point. There, it is like a wheel and not a series of wavering squares like the rest.
I'm lying in this holy goal, a giant dreamcatcher, a great fishnet. Waiting for a dream fish, waiting for answers. I'm lying here, I'm lying to myself. I don't know what I want, I keep slipping in and out of certainty. I fake the feeling of deserving this bliss, I am not submerged in it, I am not equal to it. I am lying about what I want, I don't want sex,I don't want drugs. I'm just like everybody else, I only want love, to love and to be loved.
Searchlight For Mama
I had a dream my moth died.
I was inside out sad, a chasm that straw through me through past the center of the earth, past the axle of the universe, so beyond night was unbearable, sucking my earphones down and down.
I went flying around with legs in flipping rags, howling and screeching, searchlight for mama. I found flat memory rooms, beige with carpet and broken tick tock’s, people I didn't know doing jigsaw puzzles without hands. No one spoke real words, they yes me but not from an inside place. Their humdrum covered up wax surface so I was part balloon, part buried and the face that was in the room was dead.
I was inside out sad, a chasm that straw through me through past the center of the earth, past the axle of the universe, so beyond night was unbearable, sucking my earphones down and down.
I went flying around with legs in flipping rags, howling and screeching, searchlight for mama. I found flat memory rooms, beige with carpet and broken tick tock’s, people I didn't know doing jigsaw puzzles without hands. No one spoke real words, they yes me but not from an inside place. Their humdrum covered up wax surface so I was part balloon, part buried and the face that was in the room was dead.
The Big Small
So caves, yeah?
So I'll tell you the truth about caves. Or, I guess some of the truth about caves,or some truths about caves,or at least some versions of possible truths about caves that may or may not be true, by my perception, at this time, which will probably change as soon as I write it.
The entry way is all guarded and covered by the white arms/legs/roots of maybe Kukui nut trees, bald and blonde and wrinkled elephant skin. We talked about elephants on the way, how he felt like an elephant roaming through this tall, wild, untamed grass, and how I felt like a mouse, tiny in this overarching, protective tunnel/world/maze of grass, exploring. How Ganesh, remover of obstacles, has a cohort, a tiny mouse, whose purpose is to crawl into tight spaces, like maybe a keyhole, and unlock it from the other side.
Well, let me tell you, I feel the power of the cosmic elephant mouse connection now, and especially with him. In his expansive state,creator of the universe, rainbow electric, vibrating laser show of a man, with the ideas and the passion and the physicality to carry it through. And ever reaching outward, inward, beyond, loving, through. Andi, in my inward spiral, moving into the tiny creases of my imagination, between rocks, who is hiding? In the thick of moss, in the ridges of tree bark, what are they speaking? I hear their whispers. Soften, loosen, flow, accept, become, be still, be ever watchful, blend in, stand tall, listen, play.
And inside the cave. Entering the lock with no key, allowed to pass through this threshold. Silence. It is dark and my damn thoughts keep swirling,worrying, landing on physical discomforts. He hits the jackpot with a grace of the big small. The big small. He is the only other person I've ever met to have experienced the big small, and let me tell you, it's my favorite thing and I'm always trying to explain it. It's like my whole head and/or body swells to fill the room, the world, the universe, everything. And then there is a microscopic me, a tiny me, aware,in the center, walking around in myself. Elephant and mouse.
Well, like I said, this day I felt jumbled, not so expansive, but when I lined up my spine I did feel a huge well open in my chest like a great black balloon, cool but if felt good. Between us, I wonder if it was a receiving of his love, or perhaps I was becoming the cave. And, like last time, this is weird dunno what it means but, in this one spot feels like there is a portal or tunnel up and out. Or something is there. A life force, an entryway to another realm? A trees roots? Buried treasure.
So I'll tell you the truth about caves. Or, I guess some of the truth about caves,or some truths about caves,or at least some versions of possible truths about caves that may or may not be true, by my perception, at this time, which will probably change as soon as I write it.
The entry way is all guarded and covered by the white arms/legs/roots of maybe Kukui nut trees, bald and blonde and wrinkled elephant skin. We talked about elephants on the way, how he felt like an elephant roaming through this tall, wild, untamed grass, and how I felt like a mouse, tiny in this overarching, protective tunnel/world/maze of grass, exploring. How Ganesh, remover of obstacles, has a cohort, a tiny mouse, whose purpose is to crawl into tight spaces, like maybe a keyhole, and unlock it from the other side.
Well, let me tell you, I feel the power of the cosmic elephant mouse connection now, and especially with him. In his expansive state,creator of the universe, rainbow electric, vibrating laser show of a man, with the ideas and the passion and the physicality to carry it through. And ever reaching outward, inward, beyond, loving, through. Andi, in my inward spiral, moving into the tiny creases of my imagination, between rocks, who is hiding? In the thick of moss, in the ridges of tree bark, what are they speaking? I hear their whispers. Soften, loosen, flow, accept, become, be still, be ever watchful, blend in, stand tall, listen, play.
And inside the cave. Entering the lock with no key, allowed to pass through this threshold. Silence. It is dark and my damn thoughts keep swirling,worrying, landing on physical discomforts. He hits the jackpot with a grace of the big small. The big small. He is the only other person I've ever met to have experienced the big small, and let me tell you, it's my favorite thing and I'm always trying to explain it. It's like my whole head and/or body swells to fill the room, the world, the universe, everything. And then there is a microscopic me, a tiny me, aware,in the center, walking around in myself. Elephant and mouse.
Well, like I said, this day I felt jumbled, not so expansive, but when I lined up my spine I did feel a huge well open in my chest like a great black balloon, cool but if felt good. Between us, I wonder if it was a receiving of his love, or perhaps I was becoming the cave. And, like last time, this is weird dunno what it means but, in this one spot feels like there is a portal or tunnel up and out. Or something is there. A life force, an entryway to another realm? A trees roots? Buried treasure.
Bumper cars
I have a bear gash and the knife we use is seldom cold. All earthy furry and the shovels want to eat it breakfast lunch and dinner. I am happy with this.
The logs are wilderness fires and naked to dip in waterfalls. Starship and starship, I am all howling until bathing suits fall away and the air strikes me feathers and blankets and bones.
I am rolling around nurses and listening to the sharp secrets of my body. This is celestial sewing not for the faint, because these were buried deep before I was born. Mirror effects, looping, shapeshifting beasts. No wonder these kaleidoscopes I hide in, square rooms in shade of the wild, angry at pretzels and stethoscopes. Let me out this fucking Escher!!! and the way out is through the eternal now, and the loving of this carpet and this fur coat.
Today is a day of stuck things moving. Bumper cars. Gear shift and my hips are screaming electric shock. I'm couches around today but whales below the surface, and white snakes to move the anger in my lower back. I need a spinal adjustment, but I know how to do it, if cat faces be with me and I have enough tables to myself. Every time I get close to sewn up I get bumper cars and papa tells me to eat meat. I'm tired of eating meat, it locks me in a pendulum so now I'll be a fish and swim away.
I hear woolly mammoth roar outside my window. Stripping bark from trees and shaking foundations. Touching my lowest and deepest chambers, flexible like glass. I soak up the sunshine effects, release myself from all decrees, with the armor of God in the form of my yellow fur and the mountain of ease I've been climbing since I was a little girl. All these papers and chairs are blowing off the balcony to the desert where junk and toys have created a more sustainable culture than ours. I will find my silver cord, I will learn to stay.
The logs are wilderness fires and naked to dip in waterfalls. Starship and starship, I am all howling until bathing suits fall away and the air strikes me feathers and blankets and bones.
I am rolling around nurses and listening to the sharp secrets of my body. This is celestial sewing not for the faint, because these were buried deep before I was born. Mirror effects, looping, shapeshifting beasts. No wonder these kaleidoscopes I hide in, square rooms in shade of the wild, angry at pretzels and stethoscopes. Let me out this fucking Escher!!! and the way out is through the eternal now, and the loving of this carpet and this fur coat.
Today is a day of stuck things moving. Bumper cars. Gear shift and my hips are screaming electric shock. I'm couches around today but whales below the surface, and white snakes to move the anger in my lower back. I need a spinal adjustment, but I know how to do it, if cat faces be with me and I have enough tables to myself. Every time I get close to sewn up I get bumper cars and papa tells me to eat meat. I'm tired of eating meat, it locks me in a pendulum so now I'll be a fish and swim away.
I hear woolly mammoth roar outside my window. Stripping bark from trees and shaking foundations. Touching my lowest and deepest chambers, flexible like glass. I soak up the sunshine effects, release myself from all decrees, with the armor of God in the form of my yellow fur and the mountain of ease I've been climbing since I was a little girl. All these papers and chairs are blowing off the balcony to the desert where junk and toys have created a more sustainable culture than ours. I will find my silver cord, I will learn to stay.
