Inebriate

in

It's a creeping painA slow patient pain The layers thicken Before they flake

Her hiding place dissolves The past becomes now Her hands become putty Weakness cradled by pain

She is numb Held hostage by unconsciousness His want replaces love Her love replaces anger

An inebriate coupling A black mark on a porcelain surface Giving in giving up As hope melts to softness

She sleeps in the bosom of regret But upon awakening Her hands are strong again Recovered by night's forgiving embrace.

Windows

in

I went outside and it smelled so good. I stood on a cinder block and danced to the music piped into my ears. I felt the morning sun heat up my face and my baby strapped warm against my core. Nine months inside of me, nine months next to me. I looked across rooftops, trees, water, past bridges past mountains, my gaze settling on the sky.

I danced and I knew happiness. I felt free.

Until I realized that anyone in my neighbor's laundry room could see me. They could be laughing at me. They could think I was crazy, or high, or both. A lot of people live in that house. They could be watching me the way I watch them folding laundry at night, not purposefully but because we are right in one another's line of vision. I sit at my computer, facing a window with a view. But at night the waters and mountains and trees fade to black, leaving only the illuminated window of their laundry room.

I stepped down from the cinderblock. The floating bridge in the distance disappeared behind houses.

I walked around the perimeter of my yard again. I want to memorize it now, in case I ever move. I know I will not live in this house forever. But I have grown attached to these walls where I've raised children and birthed a baby and loved a man and wrote words.

If the universe wants me to move, I will follow. If the earth wants me to feel my feet upon it, I will dance. If spirit wants me to play, I will dream.

Look for me out your window. I'm not afraid of being seen.

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

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Morning

in

Mornings open me

In the ethereal quiet of daybreak

I am free from excess thought and arbitrary restrictions.

Possibility looms in the form of light flooding from the east, clouds streaking the dome of sky.

A blank mind is a clean house, a new day is an unwritten page.

Coffee tastes better and I wish that mornings could last all day.

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Cobwebs

in

Opening feels like a cobweb of cracks around my soul.

As if I am a piece of glass and I have dropped myself onto concrete.

Not out of carelessness but because I am living and the risk inherent in living is breaking.

Light leaks through

Widening the gaps but also filling them in with the possibility of morning.

Who will I be today?

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my full moon super powers

in ,

my full moon super powers--

Fly. See all of creation from up there. Skip through space to embody unknown dimensions. Walk to the other side of this planet. Understand the nature of beauty. Feel history as it pulses under my skin. Read a book by picking it up. Traverse the highway of time. Float. Levitate. Hover. Become everyone at once. Speak without words. Communicate across blank spaces. Shapeshift. Tumble through clouds. Read my heart aloud. Hold conviction as strong as the ocean. See God in the looking glass. Memorize the map engraved upon the deepest layer of spirit. Live the loftiest existence of my soul's imagination. Catch my baby's cries with unconditional kisses. Hold them forever. Grant grandiose wishes with the wink of my eye. Erase conflict with the nod of my head. Become the wind. Exhale abundance. Hear the echoes of animals. Unpeel the scars of living. Disappear. Reappear. Remember. Turn inside out. Show my insides to the kindred. Love all the children. Breathe in the babies. The crown of each head. Wrap my arms around the ocean. Unwrap the meaning of now. Sit in the stillness of sun. Bloom. Keep faith between my fingers, always close to my fingertips. Intuit without doubting. Play life like a movie. Slow motion. Rewind. Fast forward. Repeat. Open. Heart, mind, soul. Of infinite boundaries.

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Photo credit: Alisha Sommer

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Collective Unburdening

in

Where we come from
The edges are supple
Not rigid
Blurring into the ether
And each other
Where nothing is separate
Not even our minds
Our ideas bleeding
Together
Spreading infections
And immunity
And tolerance
And maybe love.
Maybe love.
Collective unburdening
Divulges
A sparkling collection of
Modern thought
Where love of all colors
All iterations
Can be tolerated
Differences celebrated
Repression
Oppression
Confiscated by the past
Condemned by the future
Like crucifixion and the gallows
Gone
But never
Forgotten.

 

The work

in

Stop and start and stopfickle compulsions of the head making night-time final decisions based on a lucid dream. You think the work has feelings for you like a lover who leaves not love notes for remembrance but withered hopes and layered cuts. Flowers blossom faithfully in spring but never when we're looking change only perceptible after it's changed everything. It's a miasma of missing things even while doing everything it's never enough of anything stuffing holes with beautiful distraction. Pressure chips away at the beauty no one ever saw the potential we forgot to use the hours we'll never get back.

Frequency of Us

in

I don't know what I'm looking at anymore We try and try and try again

Some days we get better and somedays we get worse

The sky turns pink and we turn away

The rain falls and we call it a nuisance

The night settles and we go to bed

The morning comes and we waste it away

I don't know what I'm doing anymore

Distractions circumnavigate my head

Doubt settles in my bones

Something isn't right

Materialism Pollution Racism

Sugar Alcohol Gossip Magazines

Impatience Dishonesty Power Wars

I want to jump out of bed in the morning

Drink tea Walk in the rain Salute the sun

Kiss my loves Hold my littles Embrace myself

Write Read Move Learn Teach Love

I have a hunch there's more out there

We are like little ants on one sidewalk on one street

Unseeing past the horizon, unaware of the infinite

The country, the planet, the galaxy, the universe

Matter and energy

Vibrating on the frequency of us.

I Want to Catch on Fire

in

Why do we wake upTo days just like the last How do we slice them Into shapes that fit together To make something pretty Something worth the minutes Pieces to satisfy the cravings Fingers to play with my hair Winds to manipulate the senses Because I want to exist in a way That matters, I watch to catch On fire, not the kind that combusts With the force of a freight train But an inferno that triggers passion Like the sun after a bitter winter The rain after an oppressive summer A single moment no one ever forgets Even after we have faded Into the great nothing.

Hungry

in

Written for Trifecta. The prompt is to use the third definition of "fly." "I'm here," the little one announces, chest taut with hope.

His mother ignores him as easily as she flouts the tax man. She's talking on the phone and looking out the window, running fingers through broken yellow hair. She speaks in a low voice sweet like honey, whispering secrets and lies, topped with whipped cream and cherries.

"Who're you talking to, mommy?" But he knows the answer already: the clients. Every time he asks to become one, she lights up a cigarette and blows the smoke in his face until he coughs. He'll cough forever if she'll keep looking at him.

He says, to no one in particular, "I'm hungry, mommy." He bites his lip, it's almost as chewy as a gummy worm. He approaches his mother. He stands close enough to smell her perfume. Roses fused with nail varnish. His favorite scent in the world.

She turns away from him so that her bottom is in his face. Ripe and round as a peach. He can't help it. He's so hungry. He bites her in the ass. She drops the phone as her arms fly into motion, swatting at him with both hands. He runs away, the screen door slamming in her face. She doesn't follow him.

He hides behind the neighbor-man's truck where no one can see him. The man's belly is so big that the boy thinks there might be a baby inside even though his mother says only girls can grow babies. He watches as the man grills hot dogs, one after another. He drools like the skinny mutts who roam the trailer park, the dogs too ugly to feed, or love.

When the man drops a hot dog onto the gritty earth, he doesn't shout "dammit!" or "fuck!" Instead, he peers into the shadows where the boy hides and he calls to him.

"Hey boy, do you want this one?"

via washingtonpost.com

Wanted

in

The days of his life
Pass
Each one like the last
Partly sunny
Chances for a storm
A cyclone
A tempest
To spin it up and away
Into neverland
Quicker than it came
Upon the thrumming
Of time
Illusory yet predestined
A dream from which
He will awaken
With some relief
Fused with grief
Because he will never
Know his zenith
Not under these
Conditions
Working backwards
Lost in the details
The crowds
The jealousy
Of what he thought
He always
Wanted.

Bleached by the Moon

in

I am youngThough I look old More silver than brown Imprinted with non-linear Focus, non-stop worries Tattooed by UV rays And the stretching Of time, volumes of Blank books loaded With my affairs Collections of change I never saw coming Obligatory trauma Because easy costs Something I never Could find, now I am Quarantined like a Leper or a hermit Though it's not Contagions I seek To contain but risks I call blasphemy Selfish and ravenous For the youth I once Possessed in spades Bleached out by too Many super moons Emptied by too many Chances shriveled Like dead orchids No matter how much Water I drink in dreams Of a resurrection.

Inflections of Doubt

in

Push yourself keep on keeping onPersistence pays off, hard work will be Rewarded, everything is worth it, honest They lie through sepia-toned teeth

Mine are alabaster, linear and sturdy I brush three times per day and I never Ever floss. I can't stand spitting out Plasma and platelets, red warning signs

Of whats to come. The soul is not Made of sweat nor earth but possibly Sunshine, magical brilliance ripening Fruit, growing greens and euphoria

Nuzzling the center of every nucleus Where questions become answers Simply by losing the question mark And the customary inflection of doubt.