Visions of The Wild.

“Inner gifts Do not find their way To creatures without just respect. If a man or woman flails about, he not only Smashes his house, He burns the whole world down. Your depression is connected to your insolence And your refusal to praise. “
-Rumi


Visions of The Wild.

Refusal to praise...
This, the lesson before me.
to sing
the praises of that which is light in the world.
To speak faithfully of all I am blessed to see.
An unapologetic, unignorant, unanonymous,
a witness to life itself
Despite the tremors...
the howling
The Growling Foul Nothing
that threatens to wreck us from all sides...
it is when you focus only on that darkness
 that you miss the light
spilling through the “Crack in everything”
A crack sang into consciousness
a father to my soul.
A sage in a poet’s skin..
a light to walk toward...
perfect pupils for a lifetime
And yet quite suddenly: I can see.

I WILL bring forth what is within me.
For I see the catastrophic looming now and things ARE going to slide... These visions clearer, dreams of future-past, more lucid than ever before

I am NOT a worthy... I am new wine in torn new skin. I am earless paintings, and girl interrupted and bell jars. Waking life and eternal sunshine...
and maybe I am the cheese.

I will bring it, as if I was my favorite superhero’s, Donnie Darko and Jeanne D’arc, all the same.

This imperfect offering of a heart full of so much aching LOVE for everyone and everything that it swells to bursting with seas of sorrow and mountains of adoration

This miasma heart that threatens nightly to collapse in devastation... destroying everything in an instant...

this heart that might just be my end.
That has been pierced as often as there are stars in the boiling seas..
This heart I scream at. Hurling ugly thrift store mugs at for being so stupid and sensitive.
This heart that left unguarded, feels every single microscopic particle of venom and still holds vipers with all the tenderness of a fool without measure.

This heart I have been numbing over and over
Sipping addictions through my eyes and closing my ears. My own hands wrapped around my throat, holding back the projectile pain.

Conscious but Catatonic
A Cowering child  between torrential rainstorms...

Scolding and trying to silence for a lifetime.
This heart that is my greatest gift.
And throat by which she shines...

I will not go quietly, slipping out through the basement door at midnight. .
This is a time for smashing shit up.
For shards of glass under my barefeet.
And for trusting that my callouses are in the needed places...
Breaking out of that box I Spoke of once In a poem... twenty years ago.
 Locked in a diner surrounded by fellow liars and cowards... blowing smoke rings and eating soggy fries smeared in canned gravy and cheese product.

The fear.
The shackles on that foolish girl.
The daemon still the same that holds me down
The adversary that punches me in the chest every time I have dared to gaze up ...
out past the bars...
to the whole damned universe outside...
and the wisps of her Gods

The music sung... the monkey done.
This box is sprung:
My iron lung.

And I?
Dabbling in magic and madness in turn until they meet and merge their imperfect bodies.
The birthing room being lovingly prepared...
Though I can’t say who’s eyes and smile she will have I know for sure that her heart is of Gold
...no.
God.

bewildered yet emboldened
Coming of age clumsily.
Stumbling constantly as I learn the finer details of my instrument...

I am lioness and peahen in one.

Hear me squawk.

Kalee Featherwise Prue Mead
1/6/2020

I am not...

Repeat Realization (I've had this one before)
I am not a nice person.

I am quick to anger.
I am quick to rage.
I am quick to treat the people I love downright terrible when provoked even the slightest bit.
I am hateful to the point where it makes me ill. I hold my breath in these moments... its as if I'm hoping that by starving her of oxygen, this evil person in me will die off.
I wish she would drop dead.
I wish she'd go the fuck away.
But she won't... she is me... all that happens by holding my breath is that I get a migraine to garnish my misery with.
She is ME.
She is always there lurking in the background.
No matter how beautiful life is, she can and will find her way to the surface.
She has thrown rage fits in venice. Venice for god's sake. Venice. My heaven on earth... and she came out and threw her brutal words around at the few people that she knew and loved there. She raged and the stormed out and she searched the cobblestone streets for a cigarette like a pathetic drug addict.
I am a pathetic mess.
This is what my bad day spiral looks like from the inside...
Let me draw you a map...

Anxiety wells up. Its the same feeling I used to get when I smoked. It would build and build... and If I didn't light a cigarette, I would lose my head. And now there is no cigarette. There is only crying needy babies and sweet sad faced children asking well meaning questions of concern, and it builds and builds and I want to throw up, but I can't so I cry and watch my thoughts spiral and spin into the abyss of misery. And I feel guilty for being an awful person, and an awful mom. and I hate myself so I rage, and cry, and rage, and rage... and rage. Maybe it would be better if I just excused myself to go throw up, but the last thing I need is an eating disorder to boot.

...Sick feeling in the pit of my stomach
sometimes I wish you'd go away
it was easier to pretend that I was okay
and not a fucking lunatic
when there was no one to reflect my inner monster back to me.

This is why I don't let people get close.
This is why I don't have friends.
I don't like mirrors when I'm like this... I don't like myself and I loathe almost everyone else.

Driving home
its hard to see through
the tears stinging my eyes
and the rain on the windshield
I know Im being unsafe
but I feel so self destructive that I don't even care.

I hear my voice sometimes
what an asshole she is.
I hear the mean things she says.
I hear the jealous paranoid thoughts she has...
hear the accusations that I throw around in my mind
i know its not you.
But i don't know why I can't trust you...
Or do I.

It's because I am fucked up in the head.
It's me.
But This is how it sounds in my head...

I snooped in your messages before.
I know you apparently have no problem having sex with strangers.
The thought grosses me out.
We've never talked about it.
I don't even know if it actually happened or if it was sent on a whim during a weak and lonely moment...  were there many weak and lonely moments?
You went silent when confronted in the night, and so to excuse you.. ( to spare you embarrassment if that is what you were feeling) I changed the subject for you... back to my violation of your privacy.
But I can't unsee that message.
and I know its not unusual. I know you are far from the only man to seek the company of a willing mouth. But I guess I am one of those women who wants to believe a more wholesome illusion of her prince charming.

I wonder if I suck as good as a professional.
These thoughts are not ones I wanted to have when pleasuring my future husband.
I wonder if I fuck as good as a professional.
or the kind of girls who fuck often and have lots more practice than I was getting during my unfortunate long periods of celibacy... Maybe I should have been practicing in preparation for you... I know I take forever to cum. I wonder if that bothers you... does it feel like a chore. These thoughts make it that much harder to climax in those moments.
I wonder if you have had many lovers...
you don't talk about your past... much. Or ever about some subjects. When you do, its because I probe... and your answers are usually brief... so I ask more. and more. trying to start a conversation flowing. But more often than not, I just feel like I am prying into private corners that you didn't invite me in to.

I wonder if you've had many lovers... Did you know them all well? Were there many one night stands?
I don't particularly think I would even care one way or the other... it's more the unknown.
Its more that in our daily conversations, there are things that I know you aren't sharing with me. Things I want to know because I WANT. TO. KNOW. YOU. good... bad.. and shade in between...
And I share every. fucking. menial. detail. of my thoughts and desires and my hopes and my past and my.... And you just lay there silent when I ask you for yours.
And with passing time, I reveal more and more of my vulnerablities.
And you lay there silent.
And I give you all the ammo you need to destroy me if you wanted to.
And you lay there silent...
And because I don't know: I don't know.
I don't know if I know YOU.
I have projected before.
Am I projecting again.
It is easier to project goodness when all is well and all has been pretty well.
You are a wonderful man.
Sometimes I worry that it's too perfect. Too good.
Am I a fool?
Am I being played for a fool?
Maybe its all an illusion. Maybe you have pulled the wool over my eyes, and I am who you go home to after you've had your fill of others. We have a decent home, me and you. I am an adequate mom to our kids...

I am adequate. Maybe...

I wonder if I suck as good as a professional and I wonder if I don't will you find that elsewhere because I don't satisfy you?
this thought haunts me.
Everytime you go to play pool. I wonder if you have ever slept with any of the women at that hall. I wonder if you've slept with any or all of the many Kims. I wonder if you've slept with the girl you play pool with that gave me the cold shoulder until you let her hold our baby. Maybe she was pouting because I have your baby and she doesn't? Its probably madness.. but these are the fleeting thoughts that pass through my mind.

I can't control them.

I can't stop them.

I wonder if you ever slept with that european woman that wanted you to hang up a shelf in her apartment and wanted to know all about me afterwards. Wanted to know all about our family and how old I am. I wonder if you could tell by that message that I read that she was coming on to you. I wonder if you have her in your phone still because you will sleep with her if we break up. I wonder if you know how fucking insecure and pathetic I am. I wonder if you will leave me if I ever weaken i(n my resolve to bottle it all up) enough to let all this craziness come spilling out. You will be disgusted. You will know that my "strong independent woman" thing was a farce. That I was single because I  am a MESS. That I was scared of men. broken. I was a broken woman. I was afraid of men that might stay longer than a few weeks.. a few months. I was single because I scared.. not strong. Or maybe it was a little bit of both... I don't know. Just when I think I've got myself figured out, I realize I didn't know shit about even my own motivations.

That message...
Was it just that once?
I don't know if you were cheating then... were you single?
I don't know the timeline of your (long?) list... perhaps I don't want to know.
But I wonder. I never cheated on anyone... but I've been "the other woman" trying to steal another woman's man before. I probably have it coming to me karmically...
Will you cheat on me before you leave? When I drive you away, will you take a lover first? replace me so you won't have to be alone even for a moment. Like my brother does... Are all men like my brother? Is loyalty a fantasy?
Will you leave me marked with even more stigma than my previous great love did?
IS this all in my mind... do I mentally accuse you of insane things
just like my craziest ex accused me of all kinds of off the wall behavior?
Maybe I am mentally ill... I must be.
I wonder what my diagnosis would be...
I wish I was foolish or weak or brave (or crazy) enough to seek out a pill. Maybe there is a pill that would make me not have to feel. Or think. Or worry. Or have this anxiety that boils up and over sometimes, burning everyone around me. I wish there was a pill that made me not care about world war three and the threat of watching my babies starve. I wish there was a pill that made me not care about anything or anyone. I wish I could not feel... or not hurt. There probably is... But hippie chicks like me won't take it anyway.

I digress. Over and over again.

I swallow the lump in my throat and remind myself to take another breath before I pass out.

I try hard to push you away.
I am not loveable.
I am not loveable.
Sometimes I mean it when I say "I love me". But sometimes I am so very full of shit.
I am not loveable.
I am not worthy of love.
I am not deserving of devotion... I am damaged goods.
I am cracked and dented and broken.
I am lazy as shit, and we will probably never get ahead in life because I like sleeping and playing more than I like cleaning and working...
I am NOT loveable.
I know that it's only a matter of time before you realize this fact.
You probably already suspect.
You probably are already weighing up your other options.
Women are easy to come by. You've had more than a few.
I am easily replaced.
I wonder why you aren't turned on as quick as you once were by my presence.
I wonder why the gap between our sex drives widens. I am tired, I am stressed. But I have never turned you down, and I would have you twice as often if I could.
You don't feel the same...
Maybe my body grosses you out now that you've seen it at the full mass of pregnancy?
Maybe the weeks with a wound in my abdomen won't leave your mind?
Maybe it's because I don't moisturize religiously or shower as often as I did in the beginning?
Maybe its because I am nothing more than a milk machine almost all day long...
Maybe you are getting your needs met elsewhere?
Maybe I'm not as attractive now that I am as poor as you.
Now that I am a liability instead of an asset...
or maybe you are just tired of me.
Bored?
you don't feel the same about me...
You don't kiss me like you used to.
You don't look at me like you used to.
Already...
We've barely begun and I already feel like I am losing you to monotony or... worse.
Maybe I'm not sexy to you...
I gross myself out half the time when I look in the mirror.
Half the time, I see this amazing strong sexy goddess. The other half I see a saggy, marked, mess of a body that looks twice as old as I really am.
I am damaged goods. I am scarred and unsexy.

You can still get a woman with a nice unblemished body. You know it, and so do I.
So why don't you? Plenty of them are not only better looking, but less work and maintenance than my emotional turbulence requires of you.
I am crazy. One moment I am sweet as fucking pie and the next I'm cold as the arctic.
You will tire of this...
just go now, while my memories of self sufficiency and independence are still fairly fresh.
I can handle being dropped like a rock right now.
It'll hurt like hell.. but I'll get over you.
(who am I kidding... no I fucking won't.)
The longer this foreign life of depending upon you goes on, the harder it will be when you inevitably leave.
and you will.
I know you will.
(why wouldn't you... If I could leave me I would)
once you've stuck around long enough to realize....
I am not a nice person.
I am not loveable.
and if these ramblings are any indication, I'm a kind of crazy that pills can't fix.

You have made a mistake and I will drive it into your head, until I drive you away.  And if you don't leave I will probably run away from you. Maybe I will even do it first, because when I sense it might be ending I panic and figure I should just get it over with for you. As if it would make a difference in my heartbreak, if I save myself the humiliation of being "dumped". I will drive you away because I am afraid to love and lean on you so damn much. I am afraid that you can crush me. I am terrified that you will and I am terrified that maybe I DESERVE IT.

I will drive you away, because I love you. and you deserve more than the anxiety ridden, damaged, insecure, fragile, flighty, scarred, broken, moody, lazy, fearful person you have chosen.

When I say I am in a bad mood... this is where I am.

On Writer's Block, Generosity, Karma, and other bullshit.

While I sat eating in a burger joint last night in, I overheard a customer asking the woman working the counter if she "still writes". A mildly interesting conversation ensued, but that part is not my story, and so I'll leave it to her to write. However those words jumped out at me, and cut straight to my heart in a flash. They still echoed in my ear when I lay restless and eluded by sleep last night... they rang loudly this morning when I woke before the sun. I lay there sorting through strange and disturbing remnants of last nights dreams, musing to myself about the complexities of the world, and wondering... "Do I still write?" the short answer, just by looking back at my last journal entries and my last blog post, is "NO". I have barely written the past six or seven months... Actually, I don't think I've picked up a pen for anything other than menial list making or doodling since I found out that I'm expecting another child this past July... One would think that the realization of new life, the excitement, anticipation, planning, etc, would leave a writer overflowing with things to say.  But more than gushing outward, I'm finding myself pulling inward, to reassess and renew myself mentally, emotionally, and physically in preparation for the arrival of my unseen love. Wonderful for creating and growing a life and steadying myself for birthing perhaps, but not necessarily the best internal writing environment...

In addition to the new baby, I have also been navigating the waters of a new relationship these past seven months... In the past, that would have offered up lots and lots of inspiration... But with this wonderful man, for the first time in my dating life, I've found myself finally harnessing the ability to just come out and say what is on my mind in the moment, rather than bottling it up, telling it to a page later and slowly watching a fragile new connection deteriorate. I decided early on in this new journey into partnership that I didn't want drama and dysfunction, as great of fodder as it is for a writer, and I didn't want to have a deeper relationship on paper than I do in reality. And so, when those moments arrive ( as they will even in the best of relationships) when I lay awake upset by misunderstandings, insensitivities, hormonal surges, or differences in how we approach life, I summon every bit of courage I have in those moments, and I talk to the real flesh and blood human being beside of me instead of tearfully retreating to my journal or laptop. But what about the good times you ask? Ahhhh, but I've rarely been a writer in those perfect days, hours, or moments of joy that happen all throughout the day... Those moments seem so self explanatory that there seems little else to do but simply soak them in and enjoy them for whatever they are. And so I have been. I've been embracing and reveling in loving with my whole heart and being loved right back. So... Am I still a writer though I have not written in months? Yes. I know this because when those deeper existential questions arise, I still wake with sentences composing themselves in my head and an uncontrollable urge to leave my comfy bed way before any earthly force is going to make me be upright... Today was one of those mornings.

I dreamt I was sitting in meetings... I dreamt I was waiting outside an occupied bathroom for an eternity... until there was nothing left to do but shit in my own hand, and then go wash well. I dreamt of telling persons who were once considered very good friends, that I could no longer care for or about them. "If your house was on fire, I'd still grab a hose," I said. "If I passed you walking in the rain, I'd still pick you up and give you a ride home. But aside from that, I have nothing left to give. And I don't want to know you or your family anymore." I dreamt of breaking down empty boxes, venting my hurts with a friend also shaken by the same past events,  punching and flattening cardboard that had once contained dreams... I dreamt of an overwhelming need to vomit. To purge myself of the anger and frustration... humiliation of being taken as naive, and used terribly for it. The disgust at being squeezed for every last drop. I woke up thinking about generosity... about the seeds we sow, and perhaps thus, what we reap. Lay there following my breath and my thoughts in circles... about karma, and energy in the universe, and manifestation and how it's probably a bunch of bullshit we tell ourselves to feel better about our lot in life. I wondered if the kinds of people who use and use and USE other people to try and further their own lives always trip over their own feet in the process. I wondered if some people find themselves caught in cycles of being poor in profits because they have no generosity in their hearts... I wondered if I should tell my former friends that they constantly keep falling and will continue to fall because they take and take, and when those opportunities (even small ones) arise to give... to do something kind or generous, they still continue to take.

They say you shouldn't mix business and friendship... or family and money. I have done both... and I have seen and felt first hand how these things can poison and leave our relationships reeling. I still can not tell you without a doubt wether those two age old adages are true though... I've also seen small bits of generosity received in gratitude, and lives made better by breadcrumbs. I have see gifts accepted and radiated out.. onward and upward. I have always believed that if you can't shake hands with another human being, look them in the eye and let THAT be all the contract you need, that if you can't trust in another red blooded person standing before you, then you should not be doing business with them. I have found this proven to be foolish at least half of the time as of yet... I have found myself stabbed in the back and kicking myself for not taking more steps to protect my own interests repeatedly. But then I look at those who do take those steps to great lengths... at how miserable most of them are despite their prudent financial dealings and states... and I wonder still, which is the wiser route.  Should I be more shrewd. Should I give in to fear and mistrust? Am I a fool for believing the best about people, and giving them way more than just enough rope to hang themselves? I tried to map out what I would say to my old business partners, the friends who happily took bags and bags (and bags) heaping full of my generosity... Who fed their children on the meat (and beans, and peanut butter, and crackers, and...) of that generosity... and then turned around and sold my family PIG FOOD at a premium price, from the back of a truck filled by yet another's generosity. Should I have expected such? Perhaps my faith in mankind is far greater than it should be. Perhaps ANYONE, given free rein with another's resources would behave just as poorly. I'd still like to believe that this is NOT the case. I will hold out hope until my dying breath that true friendships and relationships will be equal parts give and take. I'd still like to believe that I can have trust in my own instincts and intuition. I'd still like to believe that big dreams can be manifested in cooperation with others. That not everyone is going to use the collective result of an entire community effort's as a stepping stone to further their own agendas.

Which brings me around to karma... reaping what we sow... manifestation of our own troubles in life... however you want to spin it. There was a time when I was absolutely certain that this was the way the world worked. These days many many more things are "shades of grey" (like the Billy Joel song) for me. I'd like to be sure of the ways of the world... but so much of what I thought I knew has been challenged that I'd have to be really dense to continue through life being sure that I've found the whole truth and all the answers. The yoga training, spiritual teachings, and reading that I have done... the assorted gurus, holy books, and guides that I have consulted at one time or another would all have me believe that our lives are the direct result of what we have sown. I have found this theory of manifestation very easy to swallow as a middle class white woman in America. I have the luxury of vision boards and chakra beads, $15.00 Yoga Classes, and sound healing therapy... Reiki certifications, expensive chocolate ceremonies, stacks and stacks of self help manuals, and decent paychecks to blow at whole foods. But when I apply this theory to so much of the rest of the world? It gets a little trickier. I once sat watching a film set in impoverished, rural South America, while intermittently browsing the internet at the same time. In one particularly striking scene showing Native workers nearly collapsing in exhaustion from mining, I stumbled simultaneously upon a video posted from a dear friend (a bubbly, beautiful, very well meaning white woman) touting the wonders of manifestation and painting hearts and flowers and pretty things as art therapy. Though I understand all too well her intent and position (it being nearly identical to my own many times), the contrast struck me as particularly ironic. In my real life, I have found the similar reasons to question manifestation and karma... Does that mean that the Rockefellers, Zuckerbergs, and Donald Trumps of the world have somehow sent some magical amazing energy out into the universe that has manifested as those magnificent resources and lavish lifestyles? Does that mean that the wonderful kind hearted and infinitely generous spirited people that surrounded me everywhere I went in the Philippines somehow deserve to have tin roofs over their heads and sewage flowing through their homes? Does that mean that the beautiful daughter that I've begun raising as one of my own somehow brought her life shortening genetic illness upon herself, or that her parents deserved it from some past life misdeeds? Does that mean that the beautiful hearted lady locked inside her own body at that nursing home that hugged me for a half hour somehow deserved to be trapped within herself (I can't think of many things terrible enough to earn such a fate)... Does that mean that the children born to homes devoid of any resources, or worse, devoid of love, deserve what they have been given? That they aren't "manifesting beauty" or bringing about their own abundance in life? The sales pitches of gurus and multilevel marketing strategies would have us believe that they just don't "want it" bad enough... Much of what I can come up with when I start asking these questions is that manifestation, karma, reaping what you sow, etc is a load of horse shit. Well meaning at times.... A defense mechanism at times... A subconscious wish for revenge at times... overall a means of coping with the difficulties of life... When planning out what I would want to say to former friends regarding the state of semi-crisis and struggles that they continually find themselves in, I am tempted to say that they bring it upon themselves... and yet.... perhaps they do.

Perhaps there is some other ways of explaining the interactions of energy in the world that I have not yet heard, and thus, do not understand that would explain karma, manifestation, etc, better. Perhaps all of those folks struck by various misfortune and states of material poverty that I mentioned have something else more wonderful than a body in perfect health or a roof over the heads of their family. Perhaps they have a strength of spirit and an abundance of love that Mr. Trump is sorely lacking, and THAT is what they have sown. While he has only sown greed and will choke to death on his mountains of cash. Perhaps there is something to be said for the principles of manifestation, but that because we so worship our money, we often misunderstand what abundance truly means. This is where my thoughts currently end their infinite circling through my consciousness and so this is what I'll conclude with.

If this version of reaping what we sow is indeed the case, then I am left with one final thought to leave my friends (both those that are, and those that were) with. Be careful my friends, that you do not become so relentless in your pursuit of the "good life", that you miss, misuse, or even destroy, the real bits of and bearers of goodness that do pass through your life. Beyond simply meeting our basic needs there is an abyss of unhappiness. Do not mistake wealth for a rich life, full of abundance. And be blessed.

I, on the other hand, am learning my own lessons, in particular this past year... about casting pearls before swine.

Big Words

I use many big words in my art and in my world. My vocabulary is not without it's limits, but my grasp of the English language is fairly extensive by most standards. Yet... for so few letters, there is no word I use, that is quite so large... as "Love".

Those four small letters carry such a massive weight... so many meanings in the subtleties and subtext. In most languages, there are dozens of different words to describe what, in English, all are lumped under the single term: Love.

I love my dog.
I love bacon.
I love this new iPhone!
I loooove lazy summer days lounging in a hammock in my garden.
I love Italian food, and Italian words rolling off the tongue.
I love the child that i carried in my womb.
I love my brothers and sisters....

I don't know how any of this applies to you.

Lustful blindness is sometimes called love.
Chocolates, and flowers and heart shaped jacuzzis is called love.
Wrinkled old bodies that no longer even share the same bedroom much less press their lips together, after 50 years spent together is called love...

I haven't used this word yet with you... maybe that is because it is too early... too soon... too something. But then again, I don't now who holds the standard that I must use to measure the language of my heart. Maybe it's too much... too soon... or too little? Or; Maybe I haven't because I am not sure that it means, what it is that I mean to say. I am not sure that it means the same thing as I have used it to mean in other lifetimes with other people. I use it freely and abundantly with friends and family... sometimes even with acquaintances that I feel a soulful connection with. But it feels strange and awkward to apply it to you when I think of the times I've said it to those I shared a bed with, and how I felt about them, and how it was similar, and yet somehow so much different... I don't want to devalue that which I feel growing stronger in me with each passing day. Its such a small word to contain so very many thoughts and feelings that your presence in my life, has been inspiring in me...

If I said "I love you" would it speak the whole of what I truly feel? Or would it speak, to you, of all those that came before me? Would it stir your fears? Poke and prod your insecurities? Would it conjure images of those who went before; the unique ways that they showed you care and connection as well as their mistakes, betrayals, and miscommunications? Would that enter into your brain, and unconsciously peg me as the same?

Love does not stick in my throat because I am afraid of the enormity of it (well maybe just a little afraid...).  nor am I afraid of its current (growing) state, it's boundless potential, or it's many forms. Speaking it out loud does nothing more than acknowledge that which exists.

It is there already...

It floats in your consciousness as well as mine, and I can see that clearly. It is what guides my lips and my hands when I am as close to you as skin will allow. It is what caresses my shoulders and whispers projects and plans to span across changing seasons in your ear. It is the patience that rises in you when my son's panicked expression tells you that he has no idea how to respond to the gruffness of your masculine voice and you soften just a bit when you repeat yourself. It is the patience that flows forth in me when I sooth your daughters foreign tears over breakfast sandwiches... where my son's familiar eyes would be dry. When I adjust my words to convey kindness and concern for her heart, even when I am firm in ways she finds unfamiliar. It is spread across the awesome sandwich I slipped in your lunchbag, and in the thankful message you sent me as you ate it. Love is in those vulnerable spaces I am opening to you, even though it is unnerving after so many years of holding them back from every other human on earth. It is in the gentle intention you enter those spaces with. It is in your eyes when they flirt across the room, as much as it is when they are six inches from mine and begging me to let you in...

It is the possibility of what we could create together in wood, in steel, or in flesh. It is nurture on mountain top trails. It is meeting halfway across the water with a life vest... Matching the rhythm of your row to help carry the weight. It is remembering and recognizing the importance of small details... listening to what my mouth is saying, and sometimes listening to what my eyes are saying despite my mouth saying not much of anything at all...

When I say "I love you",  I will mean all of these things. When I say "I love you" I will mean that I want to explore so many more mountains, plant more garden beds, bandage more small knees, and build and sculpt with you, amazement of all shapes and kinds. I will mean, that I see a light in your heart that is slowly but surely washing away my fears of whatever darkness each of us carry in these bags and suitcases we haul along on this road. I see a light that can not only withstand mine, but that is willing and able to merge flames to create something greater and brighter than either of us could alone. I see already, ample evidence of humility, integrity, hope, kindness, and honesty more abundant in you than in many (most) other men who have passed my way. When I say "I love you" what I will mean, is that I strongly suspect that we might have what it takes, between the two of us, to not only weather life's storms, but to THRIVE and enjoy the ride. When I say it... I will mean that I want to do things with you that I've never yet wanted to (or thought it was reasonable or possible to) do with any other. That I want to hold you and kiss you and care for you so unbelievably good... and that I want to trust and allow you do the same for me. So that all the years of  each of us struggling to be seen and appreciated will fade into a dusty monochromatic photo, in an album, on a shelf, in our warm, colorful, cozy, bursting with LIFE home. When I say I love you it will mean far (far) more than ANY four little letters could say. More than all the letters I've strung together here and now could say. Probably even more than bandaids, and bedroom eyes, and back rubs, and sandwiches can say (though they come closer than words could ever dream of). When I say "I love you" it won't do any justice at all to what I really want to say about what grows bigger every day within my heart and soul... but those words will have to do.

Coming Clean.

There is sadness between my legs...

shame lurking in the bottom of my ocean

stirring up as sediment in those deep places you touch 

when you look into my eyes and offer deeper thrusts...

Do you ask for deeper trust?

those tears

dripping and running down my face, 

I didn't even know were locked down 

in those tight, wet spaces

There is pain.

Now, I can feel it.

Its been rubbed.

Raw and real.

resentment

rage surfacing... 

all those moments 

when I let myself be treated as worthless.

filthy.

stained.

dirty. 

and am I? 

Soiled in my sensitive soul...

Is there no shower in the world that will make me clean? 

I have tried for years to tidy this mess with my own hands.

but maybe with a steady stream

washing your life over my walls

a little more guilt rinses away... 

While your eyes gently hold mine 

I wonder 

could I release 

impressions of ghosts hovering 

eyes that looked through me...

Arms that held me only as an option 

or an orifice.

can you hold me?

both tender and tight enough to tell my fear

over and again, until it's undeniably clear... 

that those you've wrapped me in are not the same?

he saw.

he came.

There is sorrow there where you place your lips.

your soft tongue massages so sweet... 

ripples of pleasure,

sacred treasure, 

mingled with years of tension. 

hips that have not slow danced against an-other's in far too long... 

When you dive deep

touching bottom 

there is stone...

shock. 

a child, 

not coaxed slowly from the deep warmth of my womb. 

but ripped and torn from my screaming belly.

tenderness sits sobbing...

in these breasts you lay your cheek on?

Heaving cries.

nourishment unfinished yet

then the river of life ran dry.... 

There is stinging and aching hanging in the curves

the luscious, lovely, soft spaces I live within...

I can see.

taste and smell.

can hear them polluting my home
despite my diligence. 

I send compassion to myself

and to those who poisoned 

my waters.

and I

open...

and open.

and open...

and wait. 

There is lust

there is a childlike playfulness...

and there will be light there again

bursting with life

when Love arrives.

Joy flooding those juicy spaces

enveloping...

eagerly drinking you in.

someday 

only desire will flow 

where skin meets skin. 

a flower fragrantly in bloom

will offer only sweet nectar.

my heart won't hold you back

the fear that sticks tight in my belly will shake loose... 

and I will finally. Just. let. go... 

will you lay beside me until after all my ancient tears have gone?

or will you have long since flown?

Your taste so far is pungent...

Bittersweet.

Intriguing...
Inspiring.
Gently provoking heat.

But are you made of something real?

Does fear outweigh your longing to feel?

Time will reveal.

and if I trust that you'll stand fast 

and hold dear whatever wounds you find,

will you show me what you are holding 

within this flesh that touches mine?

She wears no disguise.

Shaking in my skin.
ping pong game
of comfortable connection
and anxious awkwardness.
all those goblins lurking under my bed
come crawling out
clawing at my eyes
whispering...
I'm not worthy of those kisses...
hissing...
beware that gentle tenderness,
that kindness, friendship, and respect...

and all the tears I've spilt on 20 years of men
flood the room around me.
lifeboat filling
with fear.
its filling up!
it's filling up!
I can't swim!
I can't breathe!
I might die if I don't bail out.
overthinkingit
overthinking it
over thinking it
o ver thin king it
ov er th ink in git
o v e r t h i n k i n g i t

toughen up!
I am too strong to feel so weak in the knees.
damnit...
I am independent.
get a grip.
I don't need to need someone...
and anyway,
It's much too quick to let myself go...
isn't it?

I tell her to be still.
but there my foolish, foolish heart goes racing up ahead.
I scream at her to stop her mad skipping.
stop acting like a silly child!
Come back!

and my breath
catches in my throat.

and I'm scared
that I want your arms to stay
while I lose myself in sweet dreams.

and I'm unnerved that I've thought a dozen (or fifty) times today
about your hand strong and steady beneath my back,
and your hungry lips
on my melting neck.

My voice comes out shy... soft...
and more needy than I am used to hearing it.
and my shell cracks
a little more
each time
you caress my tension
and kiss my scars.
what if it breaks open
and you bolt.
leave me on my back
a tender, foolish, fragile pink creature
alone in this wilderness.
and what if?
and what if?
and what if?
and what if.

OVERTHINKINGIT.

too hard.
too risky.
its easier to be alone!
without this
whirlpool in my chest
of feelings I dread
fear to tread.
oh to be semisoft inside
not hard, but street-smart enough
to keep my hands firmly wedged between us.
no chance of ever mistaking
where I end and you begin.

If I throw a boatload of torrential crazy your way
will you run or hide?
my words and moods can fill an ocean.
my friend...
sweet man.
Are you mountain enough to stand?

Escape now may be easier than drowning in rip tides...
you oughta know that: she wears no disguise.
Is it alright that I really like swimming in your eyes?


I hug myself tonight
and remind me that
none can see
what will be.
and I breathe
gently
inhale
through thunder and
lightening
exhale
goblins groaning
and boats capsizing.
The shaking subsides...
I Breathe.
and
soften my belly.
I trust.
one
moment
at
a
time.

The unquenchable thirst

Last night while I slept, I dreamt of water...
Crystal clear,
beautiful water
everywhere...
Bottles of water big and bigger.
And me, drinking them down with an insatiable thirst...
Waterfalls... Shedding my clothes...
swimming in the coolness...
Cupping handful after handful of that cold sweet liquid and swallowing...I could feel it running down my throat, filling me up.
Standing in the pouring rain with my mouth to the sky,
Hungrily seeking drops with my tongue..
Bottles and more bottles
My face under a faucet swallowing greedily.
Everywhere I went, there was water.... And from every source of water I drank as deeply as if I had just crawled through a desert on my knees...
But my thirst would not be quenched, no matter how deeply, how often, or how much I drank.

And then I heard the whisper...
"It's a dream..... It's only a dream...."
I sat bolt upright suddenly in the darkness of my bedroom.
Blindly groping toward my nightstand, I prayed that I would find a REAL bottle of water there.
Choirs of angels may as well have sang out as my fingers closed around the bottle. I gulped the entire thing down as eagerly as I would have in my dream, only this time my thirst was finally, fully satisfied.
The thirst, that I had been too busy, engrossed in my day, in taking care of everything but myself, had been there all night. I had probably gone to bed with it, completely unaware in my exhaustion.
It was only when my subconscious spoke up that I discovered the intensity of my thirst. But while my subconscious could reveal my hidden need, it could do nothing to actually take care of those needs. I could swallow down Niagara Falls and still be as thirsty as ever so long as I stayed stuck only dreaming of fulfilling my needs. It was only in hearing the whisper of my inner wisdom and waking. Heeding the call, and bringing those dreams forward into my actions, that my need was satiated.

We can dream amazing dreams.. Imagine beautiful things big and small. We can dream of the lover we wish for. Of all that we would build in our lives. A career we'd like to have.... Places we would love to go and see... But unless we heed that inner call... The desires of our subconscious... Where our wisest self speaks the loudest. Until we listen to that wisdom, wake ourselves from our sleep or a sleepy existence and take action. Finally take steps towards bringing those dreams to reality. We will never taste the fruits of the life we "could" have... And we will never quench our thirst.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Take me to the river...

The wisdom of rainbow hair.

I had long gorgeous locks once upon a time... Wavy, luscious chocolate brown with hints of red and sun kissed flecks of gold. The wispy ends of it grazed the back pockets on my blue jeans... It caught eyes and turned heads. But underneath the head of hair... The pretty face. The compliments that followed me around.... I was broken in a million pieces from the neck down... Filled with fear and self loathing.... ugliness from the inside out.

After the years of self-perpetuating abusive relationships... After I gave birth to a beautiful fatherless boy. I hit rock bottom. I couldn't conceive of ever again inviting a man into my heart or bed... I could see no value that I had to offer at all. I could see nothing at all in my mirror to smile about. Except my gorgeous wavy hair.

I stopped brushing it for two years in an attempt to shun my vanity. To hide from the gazes of men. My Nanu loved me dearly, but despised my dreadlocks. Everytime I went to visit he would ask when I was going to cut the pile of poop off my head. When my Nanu died, to honor him I spent the day before I was to give his eulogy sitting in a chair, while my mother and sister and a large bottle of conditioner tried to salvage a precious few inches of my dignity. The short inches left curled in perfect, adorable spirals around my features. Each and every hug to comfort me the day I sent my Nanu off to the heavens was accompanied by a ten minute conversation about how much better my hair looked now... Ny head felt lighter... But my heart was as heavy and tangled as the masses of twisted and gnarled hair I had cut from it.

When my son was three I handed him a pair of scissors and let him hack off most of those few ringleted inches. I wore his ragged, punky handy-work for three days before I borrowed a pair of animal clippers from a farmer friend and, with the help of an Orange BIC, I freed myself of the last bits of that auburn beauty I could not own. In the two years my head was simple and clean I learned what it feels like to have the rain tickle my scalp and that sunburn on my shiny dome is not fun. I learned that my head could be an amazingly sensual place and that forehead massages can result in something that could almost be described as an orgasm. I learned that without the distraction of hair, completely independent of what had once been my greatest beauty, I was still radiant and sexy. That while I had expected to repulse them, now these amazing men saw just as much beauty and now noticed and noted the kindness in my eyes, the feistiness in my walk, and the full sensual shape of my lips. I discovered, more importantly, that my desirability was not only found in my physical features.

I found that when I had no curtains to hide my face behind that I had to stand and be seen. In the face of jeers and stares, snap judgements about my values and my sexual preferences, I had to be stronger than I knew I could be. I climbed over walls and jumped through fire without fear of being caught by nails or sparks. Pushed through briar bushes and crawled under barbed wire without snags or snarls. Some of the most inspiring (and unexpected) moments were finding connections to women who had lost their hair to the ravages of things beyond their control. Though for many of them, their lesson came with a medical cancer diagnosis, mine had come from a cancer of the soul... I realized that my hairless scalp was as much a part of my cure as theirs was. I found a kinship with these amazing survivors that I may have never noticed, were it not for the beacons of each of our bald heads, glowing in the sunlight. A silent testimony to our trials and triumphs.



It's been nearly four years since I last felt a razorblade glide across my scalp... When I stand naked my hair tickles the bottom of my rib cage... It is still mostly a chocolate brown but now my glowing heart is painted into it. My artist hands smudge and smear streaks of purples and turquoise... Blues and green dye... Bits of pink stand out in the sunshine. It's as if every strand on my head is radiantly skipping and cartwheeling... My multicolored hair is, not an act of rebellion, but of shouting for joy, that I am alive to wear this glorious crown! I won't always wear a rainbow on my head... Nature will take my head back from the bottles of blue... The brown I was born with will hopefully someday give way to grey and I will wear each stage as gracefully as my soul allows. But for the first time in my life, at thirty-four years old I know that the waves of beauty cascading around my face are owned. When I walk by a mirror I SEE an accurate reflection of the beautiful woman I finally know that I am on the inside. When a strand blows across my face I greet it lovingly as a part of me. I feel delight (delicious even!) as I brush silky strands out of my eyes.... I could take it off again tomorrow... I have no need of it, I am me and I am beautiful from the inside out with or without these locks, and painted colors or not. It's a silly and frivolous thing, really... But I am grateful that I have been given such a gift to wear for my years on this earth. To decorate and wrap the treasure of my heart with. A loved one recently noted how much my hair has grown out... The irony makes me smile... It is not my hair that has grown, it is I who have finally grown into my hair.






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Inspired by reflections in a pond

Bedroom Eyes

Aren't you tired?

my love...

of peering down from those turrets of stone?

safe.

But alone...



Aren't you weary?

peasants and lambs...

strutting peacocks brilliantly boastful.

boiling oil at the ready...

arrows that could split hair.

aren't you tired of quiet discontent

but not defiance or dissent?



aren't you tired of fear?

of not touching, but gazing at your beloved.

at all the would-be beloveds

from holes chipped in six inches of plaster

vision impaired by the fibers of poorly woven bandages?



aren't you drained by always being right?

held tight in the center of that globe

watching the rest of us

merely particles swirling about,

decorating your space?



aren't you wasted from pouring your feelings in a bottle

cabinets overflowing with cold, sealed glass.

of telling those same stories

over and over? the same film replaying in every matinée in your mind...

the taste of only those words on your tongue

the sounds familiar (too familiar?) on your lips?



aren't you bored of projects? Projection instead of connection?

text instead of touch

art as only an expression of loss...

buried sorrow.

wrapped in humiliation.

instead of joy mixed with those tears.

celebration and adoration!



aren't you exhausted from running

throwing caution into the wind without a care for the hearts in your hands?

the chaos you return to when that pack grows too heavy?



aren't you spent from the same blank checks... the judgmental eyes

overtaxed by the unnecessary tears?

whispered voices of reason hoarse

stuck on repeat all these years?



aren't you distressed by those ropes loosely holding you?

and can't you see there is no knot?



who would you be

were there no need

for feeling the rails on your back

screeches perpetually lodged in your throat

is it a charming rescue you endlessly await?

or release under the wheel of Casey Jones?



aren't you worn from clinging?

to that pacifier

...soiled stuffed toy

faded and torn blanket

so safe and secure?



aren't you weary of being fed by a newsfeed

facing a wall instead of faces?

voices lost in endless space?

speaking and preaching into an abyss

caught in a web

connected, but stuck...

lethargically awaiting death.



aren't you fed up with stuffing your face and padding your heart with fast foods

a disposable man in a disposable world?

wrapped in rejection,

smothered in self depreciation,

lathered in bacon fat?

resigning to dull moods.

sex as pornographic crude.

the world done me wrong

the blues tuning in every song...



getting off and merely taking.

no chance of being crushed...

or breaking..

half heartedly faking...

a poor match for opening up... letting in.

for love making...



aren't you fatigued from channel surfing instead of riding waves of ecstasy?

gazing out across beverly hills instead of breathing in mountain tops?



substituting ritual and routine for exploration of the spaces in between?

applying only rigid method to seeking evidence of the unseen

dismissing the magic of all this wondrous universe.

self-righteous disbelief in mystery... how time flies....

don't you miss the awe and tiny miracles of your childhood eyes?



aren't you tired of clean hairless sofas instead of warm purring laps?

dry faces instead of loving kisses?



aren't you sick of the cure?

done swallowing mouthfuls of bullshit?

capsules to rid you of all these pesky emotions?



aren't you tired of settling for less than

pulse racing, heart soaring, soul growing, mind expanding, sweat dripping, body merging...melting, blissful touching...

reaching for SOMETHING?



aren't you run down from always being the chaser... never chased?

or was it vice versa...



movie screens? same old scenes...

heartless machines...

missing dreams.

steady monochrome stream...

aren't you tired of lies?

head in a fog?

sleep in your eyes?

a life lived painless? effortless...... stainless.

but loveless?



we are more than our patterns... more than our slumbers



in a world so uninspired.

my love... aren't you tired?

A Wondering Wanderer.

1:30 A.M.
another sleepless night.
I wonder many things about who I am...
always.
tonight I wonder who I am to you.
I need no labels, no names, nothing really...
friendship is a blessings in and of itself
but I wonder all the same
if my confusion is mine alone or if you bear the same burden?
I wonder what you think when I cross your mind.
I wonder what you thought when first your eyes touched mine many moons ago...
I wonder if the same warmness, kindness, and unbelievable strength radiated from my eyes.
I wonder if your poetic heart sang one quick but beautiful note as it did when you met that girl who loved you and cut you so many worlds away from today... perhaps not, as I fear...
Or perhaps you'd forgotten how to hear?
I wonder if the same hint of unsureness that comes from hurts buried deep and wounds left unhealed by another's kisses also whispered quietly in my shy sweet smile.
I wonder if you noticed my quiet confidence waver for just a moment?
I saw yours... even from across the road.
I wonder if you look forward to those momentary glimpses of my face, my world, as I do yours.
If you smile and flutter at those dozens of little bells that chime most days with my name on them as you go about your life, and I mine.
I wonder if you also think I am more lovely and wonderful each passing day... even with the imperfect spots... the blotches, the bricks and stones, sticks and bones,
the cracks and tears, the misplaced fears...
I wonder if you were available... if I would have botched things terribly already, as I'm convinced I have so many times before when I let lurking insecurities beat me over the head and drag me back to their dark caves...
I wonder if you ever will allow yourself... or me... that possibility?
or if its more than just a security blanket you sleep beneath...a functional facade.
is it socially obligated arms length... are there stronger chains?
is this glass between us the window of your home?
your bedroom mirror?
a bell jar around your heart?
or my rose-colored glasses?
I don't want to own you OR owe you...
but I'd really like to KNOW you.
and I wonder if I'm brave enough to even show you...
to let you see...
all these fragile and twisty turvy parts of me
I wonder if I know how to be anything but alone
I have had only me to walk beside for so long...
and yet HERE it is... despite my pain, my fear, my shame .... I am open.
Here are my veins... do we bleed just the same?
Am I worthy of your heart... your art or flow charts?
I am here.... in the dark... staring at a screen. Where are you?
I laugh out loud to sooth my nerves, because maybe I shouldn't.... but sometimes I can't help myself... I wonder what your arms would feel like around me... if your hands are strong from caressing those strings... what your skin would feel like under my fingertips... and what it would be like to whisper "goodnight" in your ear with my lips... instead of my tired thumbs.
I wonder how long I will let myself wonder before I wander on my way...
and I wonder if you would even care if I did...

An open letter to the Rapist who claimed my virginity.

Dear Brian
I typed your name into the Facebook search box tonight on a whim. I had done it before one other time, years ago. I vaguely remember seeing your blurred smiling face in a baseball cap, and the feeling of disgust that suddenly welled up in the pit of my stomach, I had to click away. This time was different though, perhaps I have grown softer over the years since then and now… and I have surely grown softer in the years since you stole my innocence in the house that “Merch” built. This time instead of just your smiling face that made me want to punch the SCREEN until it shattered into a million pieces, there was two small, beautiful, golden haired, smiles in pink dresses on each side of your dimples... And your smile… was so happy… so radiant with joy sitting there between those two tiny angels, that instead of disgust… instead of rage… the only thing that welled up in me was an overwhelming feeling of joy in my throat for you… and in that instant... just like that, forgiveness happened.
 
Fifteen years ago you wanted to pretend that next morning that nothing had happened, and I went right along with you out of shame. I made believe while working and selling right along side of you for weeks afterward that nothing had happened. To the few I told, I made believe that we had made love. That I had finally been “made love” to. You pretended nothing had happened to everyone, after all, you were my team-leader and dating each other was inappropriate, as you had been telling me after every time we had kissed up until that point. Of course the same was true after we… well, after YOU had sex with me… but then you moved on very quickly from encouraging my puppy-love crush in the moments we stole off alone together, to dating another girl who was part of your sales “team”. I’m sure I could write pages on what that did to my self esteem, but I won’t… I want to focus on the rape itself. Because YES, Brian, what you did was rape, though it took me years to call it by name.
I adored you. You knew it, our friends/coworkers knew it, our manager knew it… everyone who had eyes to see knew it. I hung on your every word… Your stories about growing up without a strong family tore at my heartstrings. Your proclamations about your beautiful home state of Wyoming being the most breathtaking place on earth… “God’s country” you’d sigh… and I believed every word. I believed in you when you said you were going to succeed, you always were a terrific salesman, and I bought your dream. You were going to work hard enough to make your wishes come true, undoubtedly, and when you said that and looked into my eyes with those beautiful brown puppy-dog eyes and kissed me... I was pretty sure (in my naivety) that you wanted me to come along with you in that dream. You see Brian, I was a young nineteen. I had only dated three guys up until that point and none for longer than a few weeks… none had gotten even as far as third base, and when it came to the male psyche, I had no clue whatsoever. I had no idea that, while I was kissing you because I was picturing wedding bells, you as a man could have shared the same deep conversations, the same passionate kiss, and still be picturing only a soft wet hole. Or maybe that isn’t that at all, maybe it’s not the male psyche ( and it’s not, But It took me years of spiraling downward in my relations with men to realize “not all men”). Maybe it was you, not that into me, but immature and unable to tell me straight up, instead of making excuses that left me still believing that our feelings were mutual. Maybe it was you, unsure of your feelings for me, and drowning the pain of your shitty childhood in one too many beers that particular night that relieved you of your self control… I say this, not to make excuses for what you did, or the pain it caused, but to find a place in my mind and my heart where I can make peace with what happened that night.
I wonder Brian, if you even remember my name. I wonder if you remember what you did, or realize the lasting effects that sort of thing can have on a person? I looked at your smiling face on my computer screen last night and I wondered if you ever look at those two beauties on either side of you and hope that they never meet a man who treats them as you treated me. I think, if I was in your shoes instead of my own all these years, that I would probably have pushed away those memories. That I probably would have come up with reasons to justify it… after all I was in your bedroom. I was cuddled up alongside of you. I did receive your kisses willingly. I dry humped you right back happily. And in all honesty, I felt so much admiration and love for you, that I did want to make love to you.  I wanted to… IF we were an actual couple, if you put had put your arm around me in the company of our friends and not just in the dark on our walks around on those city streets, if you had called me your girlfriend instead of your (one person) sales team, if you didn’t smell of beer, and caress me just a little too rough that night… Even though I was afraid of losing my virginity. Even though I was anxious that it might hurt and that a man might think less of me if I slept with him too soon in our relationship… Brian, I adored you. I’m almost sure that I would have happily and willingly given you the prize you claimed, if not that night, surely on another. The regret, the sadness, the self loathing, fear, anger, frustration, self-destructing, mistrust and hatred that your penis inside of me caused wasn’t because it was YOU I gave myself to. I wanted to give myself to you. The problem was that I DIDN’T GIVE it to you. I said “no” Brian. When you started to remove my underwear, I said “no”. When you pressed yourself against me harder, I pushed back with my hands and said “no”. When you pushed painfully into me despite the tension in my unaccustomed and unwilling vagina, I said “NO!”... And then I gave up. It was already done, you were already inside me. So I tried my best to “relax”. I tried to tell myself that since I loved you, this was "making love". I even kissed you back as you jammed your mouth just as hard and rough against my face as your pelvis was grinding into my spasming, pain-wracked hips. After you finished like a porn star, and threw me a dirty towel off the floor for my belly, I think I may have even gently stroked your back as you passed out next to me. I lay there awake most of the night replaying and getting started on rewriting our sex into something other than rape.  In the morning before you woke up, I stole quietly out of the house to go get cigarettes with one of our friends. I was ashamed and I was bruised. Our friend Tiffany was wise-cracking, indestructible, and the life of the party, I idolized the hell out of her. I wanted to cry and tell her everything, but I was embarrassed. She had had lots of sex, and she knew the extent of my crush on you. I had finally gotten to have sex with you, wasn’t that what I wanted? No… No, it wasn’t.
Brian, I could write a novel about the past fifteen years since that night when my innocence died. About all the chain reaction of pain and trauma that came from losing my virginity to rape in the hands of someone I loved and trusted. Maybe I will someday.  Today though, I write with a different purpose…. I see your smiling daughters, Brian. I see the innocence on their faces… They are so young, so eager, so absolutely enamored with their dad. And they should be, they have a wonderful father who I’m sure dotes on his princesses and adores them beyond measure. Over here, I have my sweet, gentle-hearted eight year old son sleeping next to me as the sun rises while I write this letter to you. I see these wonderful children we have each brought into the world, and I know that I must forgive you… and more than that, I must tell you out loud that I forgive you, so that maybe, just maybe, you can forgive yourself.
Perhaps you haven’t spent fifteen years playing that night out in your head from time to time, or maybe you have. Perhaps you don’t remember me or if you do, perhaps you don’t have enough of a conscience to care. Perhaps if you do think of me, you like to pretend to yourself even now that what we did was have consensual sex, I know you pretended that back then the few times we spoke of it.  Perhaps my forgiveness is not needed, and your life was not effected in any way, shape, or form by the event that so strongly shifted my own. Or maybe it did, and is effecting you. Maybe in the back of your mind you still think of yourself as a rapist when you kiss your lovely wife and tuck your smiling daughters into bed. Maybe your life has been just as tough, maybe you have caused yourself just as much (or more?) suffering. I am not a religious woman, but I believe that life is about the exchange and interplay of energies. I believe that in one way or another, you get back what you put into the world. Call it karma, or whatever you’d like, but I can’t believe that the energy that you put out that night into my life hasn’t come back to you in some way… In which case, I want to tell you this Brian: 

I forgive you, and thank you. Truly… I have no frame of reference for what my life would have been if you hadn’t laid on top of me that night, maybe it would have been grand, with less struggles, and more beauty. But I love my life exactly as it is right now. For all it’s ups and downs, I wouldn’t be who I am, where I am, and probably wouldn’t have the beautiful child sleeping next to me if it weren’t for you. I was messed up for a long time, its true. But not now… Now, I am okay… in fact, way better than okay! So, as fucked up as it is: Thank you. Tonight I released you of your debt. I smiled at your Facebook pictures ( the one of you playing guitar for your oldest hit me right in the heart)… I sobbed big heaving sobs for the naive little girl who loved you… and for a simple, sweet, sad boy from God’s country who made a big mistake. May we both raise our daughters and sons to be stronger, wiser, kinder, and with more self control than either of us had. May your children have the steady as a rock, overflowing with love childhood that you were deprived of. May we someday live in a world where rape is seen by both men and women for the horror that it is, so that my son and your daughters will never question that "NO" means "NO. May our children never know the depths of the struggles and despair we have known. I release you from my heart, from my body, and from my debt Brian. Go in peace and may you be blessed.

Death Becomes Her...

I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately… more than usual, though death has been a pretty consistent visitor to my thoughts my whole life… just as I suspect it is for most of us. Perhaps some of us choose to indulge those thoughts and some of us choose to push them away, but the thought is there regardless. I’ve done both, dwelled on, and denied those thoughts at different times throughout the years. There have been times when life was so vivid, so amazing and fruitful that I couldn’t possibly entertain any thoughts of it all coming to an end some day. There have been times where, emotionally, my situation seemed so desperate that I spent most of my waking hours contemplating wether death might be a nicer alternative to life… And I have involuntarily stared death in the eye, went a few rounds, and came out still on top (for now).

… In 2008 I contracted E. Coli 0:157: H7 from a tainted
batch of Local, Grass-Fed, Organic Raw Milk. The E.coli infection turned into a serious complication called Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome. My kidneys completely shut down and were it not for a physician’s assistant in a walk-in clinic who was fortunately paying attention…. well, lets just say: I was less than 24 hours from certain death. I spent the next month in intensive care receiving plasmapheresis, a form of dialysis where all blood is removed from your body, the plasma separated out, and then donor plasma and my blood cells were put back in. Most of the month Doctors continually told my family that there was not a very good chance that I would survive. I suffered a heart attack and a Grand Mal Seizure. I required twice as many plasma treatments as those suffering from my illness typically would need to recover. When my kidneys finally regained most of their function, and I was released, I was a bloated, scarred shell of my former self… I could barely walk, and I was taking 15-20 different medications for everything from blood pressure and cholesterol drugs, to steroids and diuretics, to anti-psychotics (for PTSD), anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety pills…

Before my illness I wouldn't even take tylenol because I didn't want to expose my body to potentially toxic laboratory chemicals... I ate all organic and natural. I was in excellent physical shape and rode my bicycle miles every day with my toddler son strapped into his child seat. After my illness, I spent the next two+ years recovering as much as I could of my physical health… I spent a few more years after that recovering my mental and emotional well-being, and I’ve spent mostly every day since then remembering (and trying to forget) what it felt like to be standing on that shaking, quivering bridge between life and death. I remember the day I had the seizure and heart attack, and the panic and helplessness of knowing that my body was (possibly fatally) malfunctioning and that I could do nothing to change that… I remember the anger and frustration... the RAGE that overcame me at times because I did everything "right" for the sake of having a healthy body and it still could not save me from illness and near death. I remember the feeling of spinning and falling into blackness… I remember lights... the colorful halos and energetic impressions of love and compassion from the doctors and nurses doing everything in their power to pull me back from death’s grasp. I remember vividly, though I can’t recall when it happened in earthly terms, that there was a moment when it was my choice. MY CHOICE, wether to let go and find release from my suffering… or hold onto my body despite the pain and suffering that came along with holding on. I remember being saved by being a single mother. I know without a doubt that my 18 month old son, who was waiting at home for his one and only parent to come back, was the ONLYreason that was worth holding on for… That I chose to live rather than embrace death seven years ago, and I have been running from her ever since.

I have thought a lot about death… I’ve also spent a lot of time distracting myself from all of the unknown that death holds… I’ve spent years pushing away the fear that, for several years after my illness, consumed nearly every moment, waking or sleeping. That even now, years later, sometimes sneaks up on me in the dark or stillness and catches me off guard. It's the panic that wraps around your throat.. sits on your chest until you beg, eyes stinging, ears ringing… gasping for your breath... drowning on dry land…. The feeling that the whole room is spinning… the world is whirling so fast that the sky above is an empty hole that I could fall into, lost forever… The helpless realization that not my beloved parents, not my home, my dog, my martial arts training, shotguns, or even the solidity of the earth itself offer even the slightest protection from death. That I am being chased by my doom… and that there is no escape. Not for me, not for you, not for the kindest person I know, or for the richest famous jerk we all envy and despise, and not for the poorest folks I’ve seen sleeping on the streets… it is truly the great equalizer. I don’t know about the rest of you… but I know that this realization has scared the SHIT out of me for over three decades… I’ve alternated between being paralyzed by my fear and living in denial of my mortality since I was old enough to remember… and I am TIRED of this routine. I am tired of choosing safety over freedom out of desperation to prolong the inevitable for as long as possible. I am tired of existing in a state of semi consciousness and finding distraction after distraction to keep me from facing reality and all that goes along with it. 

This February was my Thirty-Fourth birthday… I was incredibly fortunate to be able to spend it in Italy with some of my loved ones. The trip there was supposed to be a relaxing, sightseeing vacation… but for me, it turned into a pilgrimage… Everywhere I looked I saw my mortality. I saw MY death.. our collective death… tombs, and great arenas where thousands upon thousands of men, women, and children had lost their lives violently. Entire cities lost in fire and ash. Churches filled with statues of humans that once walked the same earth as I now walk… beautiful paintings almost all with images of suffering… of the horrors of religious wars….  Buildings built by unknown, nameless masons, still standing thought their names are long since forgotten. Marble busts of important (or self important) wealthy rulers, intelligent thinkers, godly men, and gifted artists… none made anymore immortal by their gold or gifts or by the noseless, soulless stone ghosts they’ve left behind than the ones whose faces and flesh have long since decayed and returned to the earth. All just as dead…. no one was spared.

The climax of my journey came at the crypt of the Capuchin Friars. The crypt is build from thousands of human bones… the ceilings, walls, and doorways built from and decorated with the bones of believers. I stood looking… almost in a state of disbelief at the piles of skulls… of leg bones just like mine… vertebrae of spines that once help up a living conscious human being.

 “What you are, we once were. What we are, you will be” 

said the sign underneath the bone archway… and it finally hit me! Standing there breathing in the dust of lives long since ended… I will NOT live forever. It is so obvious, and yet so earth shattering in that moment that I finally really understood it. I will not live forever.......… and no amount of running… no amount of denial… or fear… or hope… or being good… or being bad. Or distracting myself with glowing screens full of useful information…. is going to change that. All the books I buy… all the yoga mats and Buddha statues… the alter with Jesus and Mary and all my other religious figures… my cabinets full of the healthiest foods money can buy…. my bottles of pills.... my love for my son.... NOTHING. NOTHING is going to stop my life from ending one day or another, just as so many other lives have ended before mine, are ending at this very moment, and will continue to begin and end for long after I have breathed my last. I cannot run. I cannot hide… I cannot make bargains to prolong it… and I have no idea when it will arrive. and despite the various scenarios I can hope and pray for in an “afterlife”, the fact is that I HAVE NO IDEA what happens after we die, and I don’t believe that any of us DO know without a doubt… So it seems that what I am left with, is the need for peace. And if I cannot find peace in any of the human answers about what comes after death, than I must make peace with DEATH itself, with my own soul, and with the life that leads me to that death. 

As I carried that crypt with me through the rest of Italy, I came to a few further realizations. In particular, I was thinking about terminal illnesses… and how I have heard stories about people who find out they have a year to live, and how they spend that year making peace with death… living fully every moment they have left, for in that year they realize the preciousness of every breath. I realized that when I hear those stories I feel a twinge of envy. Yes, ENVY. For those who are in the final days of their lives… I want to know what it is to live with such intent, intensity, gratitude, purpose, as is inspired by a death sentence…. But what folly! I HAVE a death sentence same as they do, same as you. Why can’t I choose to live as if I am dying without a cancer diagnosis?

I have returned from my unintentional pilgrimage a changed woman… I have decided to live this next year as if it is my last, and for all I know it could be! In fact, I am consciously choosing to believe, and behave as if this might indeed be my final year. Perhaps I truly will not live to see thirty five. I have begun the process of facing and letting go of my fears of dying. I have begun treating all those who I love as if these interactions may be among our final ones. I am finding myself quicker to smile. Quicker to admit when I am at fault… to say I am sorry, or “I love you”. I am already noticing I am less inhibited and cautious in socializing with friends, family, and acquaintances alike… If there is no “tomorrow” how can I go wrong in speaking the truth through my eyes? If my intention is to leave this world with slightly more love in it than when I came into it than why do I need to fear being real in expressing my love? 

… I have spent many moments already the past few weeks crying… letting myself feel my fear… my pain at the thought of leaving this beautiful world. Of saying goodbye to those I love the most. I have spent much time sitting by myself or snuggling with my son, and asking myself: If this is my last year on this earth, what do I want to do with it? Who am I when all the non-essential is stripped away, and what is it that is truly important to me? What is it that I want to leave behind when I am gone? I can’t say this has been an easy process… or that I haven’t slipped at times into old habits of momentary denial…or complacency. But I can say that I keep faithfully coming back to this process… breathing through this meditation that is steering my life now in ways I’ve never experienced before. Maybe it is morbid to consciously focus on my own demise… but I have never felt so alive, haven’t felt so conscious in going through my days since I was a child. I have no idea where it is leading me in life, but if nothing else I believe that in facing the end head on, I may go more peacefully to my grave some day, whether sooner or later time will tell. One way or another, I hope that when she arrives on my doorstep, Death will be like an old friend that I know well… And just maybe, instead of grasping and gasping in terror at my last breath, I will find that I am able to greet her lovingly, and graciously make my final exit.

from private pages of journey journals...

Italy.


Angels in mustaches with breasts
gazing at each other from frescoed walls
for times untold, in ancient halls
Riding on unicorns
scaling castles tall.
reading maps of pleasure
unuburied treasures
heart without measure
unblinded eyes relearning to see
be patient with me
for what is a sea?
and what is it to see...
tagging through a door
playing hide and seek
a piano or a floor?
and when and what to say
we shall see another day...

sing sweet nightingale
from the waters or the shore
sing sweet nightingale
a piano or a floor?
and what are words anyway?
judgments made of that which we feel
but cannot hear.
stone that cannot speak?
proclamations for time to carry
V's misplaced by ancient races
wounds erased and mirrors faced...

I still remember your eyes
when you said: I love me.
you meant it.
more meaningful than any other words in the world
for only a man who truly loves he
could ever STAND and love this she.
and its okay if not you...
the lesson was your truth.
there is not desperation now
only scars of fears
of years of deflation
tears of re-creation
years of patience
searching... seeking self.
my heart on a shelf
refusing who could not walk
refusing using
and manipulative talk.
damages repaired with gold
kintsugi woman: a treasure to hold.
a tearful mess
a tender breast
a carried stress
a strong lioness
Imperfectly divine
this paradoxical heart of mine.
strength in fragility
but delicate to whom petals are open
easily broken
taking care with whom I share....
cracks can be shattered
torn or tattered
if crushed spirits can be mended
mended parts can surely break.

I've been found
on a pilgrimage of love
standing naked on mountains above
swimming in the sea... looking overboard for me.
crawling on my belly in the cold dark places of the world
feet torn and bruised.
lost and used
lifting and leaping
gifting and keeping
roses sleeping
beauty reaping
mother weeping... tears still seeping
heart still beating
love still seeking.

only open hearts are spoken.

only.
broken.

hearts.
are open.


2/25/15

throwing fits

I throw tantrums.

I throw tantrums when I don't get my way.
Spitting venom like fire
emotions balanced on tight wire
I am 8
In my play and these other ways
tears run fast and furious
for this heart so curious
anger like an explosion
quick and painful
left to deal with the aftermath
the disaster in my path
always ready to be right
steeled and armored for a fight
red blurring my eyes
clouding usually clear sight
don't know how to let go
the years where punching back
with words and ways
was all I could do
when i was green and new.
closing down or throwing up
throwing stuff
used to punch walls and steering wheels
overwhelmed by the pain of helplessness I feel
helplessness.
a helpless mess
without a voice
without a choice
and now its my way always
all days, my way or you'll pay.
tears or jeers or throwing spears.
daggers for eyes
angry spiteful cries...
hypnotizing, mouth is lying
kindness crushing, soul is dying
with years some fears are multiplying.
breaking in pieces
shattered peace
why am I so weak?
can I be whom I seek
who I long to be, ache to see?
pretend is she....
If you see my flames would you feel the same
if its you I blame?
venting frustrations
verbal shits
not with fists but my mouth hits.
hissing throwing fits.
this helplessness
this heavy mess.
inherited stress
does it make me less if I'm never my best?
failing tests...
abandoned quests...
If I'm never she who my heart knows I could be... should be?
can I still be love, be loved
If I'm not a perfect me?

Reflections on a mother's heart... (bathed in the waters of venice)

I am that which I love with or without the object of my love
and yet I am not and can never be.
For I am an observer of the most exquisite beauty
momentary clarity
glimpses of joy.
infinity impartially
Witnessing and guiding him
but try though I might, I can not swim.
only rarely reflected in the waves...
I see:
the man I'd love my son to be.


The choices made?
I've been mistaken.
Love I've given:
more was taken.
true love was given
heart still breaking...
so many burdens
trying to juggle gracefully
holding tight so gratefully.
I nurture this seed
gifted amidst dangers
instinct never heeded.
The life I prayed for
saved my own.
but oh so poorly... poorly sown.
I carry now this heavy load...
what i can not give him
the ways I can not show...
how to be solid... strength...
how to stand steady... bending but not breaking.
emotions flow through me like waves
rippling river tides
breathless rides.
random like rhymes
tears at times
worry that my tides might carry him away
in future days
leave him flighty and fearful
tearful in all the wrong places.
I've seen so many faces
miserable man after man
none able to stand.
not fit by far to hold his hand.
its not me the desperate cries come for...
Though my longing is deep in its own right.
it's not for me I weep softly at night..
So much of my heart walks free of my body
The need in our lives is in my dearest's eyes...
my tearful heart, he laughs and lies...
a unfinished poem from days gone by...
so many moments failing
at what he needs for me to be
Loving always loving...
but I haven't tools to offer
all the things he needs to see.
though he grows with what I give
these regrets are what I live...

I wish that I had known
how the choices I made in time
would shape a life that isn't mine.
I wish I'd known what would be
and that foolish little girls
with fantasies
could create lasting ripples in a massive sea
I wish I'd understood
what's been shown with passing years.
I wish that I had known my son...
and could mend hearts with my tears...