find myself

October 1, 2011, 5:34 am

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standing out in front of the house on the sidewalk at 3 am in my socks and pjs staring up at the sky.
so quiet.
as quiet as it gets here. and the air is almost clean. and theres no people. yet.
eventually i feel the cold from the pavement creeping into my feet.

i know i'm not doing well when  i do stuff like this.

with the sun comes the cars, and laundry fumes...its saturday. a big laundry day for people.

i'm scheming for a refuge, which ultimately cannot be the sidewalk at 3am.

if i could get a little land with a scrappy little cabin i would. i fantasize about it being this resource to share with other chronically ill folks i know. consider doing this whole online i'm a good cause fundraising thing that seems to kinda work for folks but i just can't seem to get it together.
possibly because deep down i'm not convinced that i am...a good cause.

or i've got too much stubborn trashy pride.
right...in my socks, on the sidewalk.

the other refuge/recovery idea is a little rv. like an old toyota. but i wonder about the triggering -living in a car-factor and if i'll actually make use of it and if it would actually be helpful.

slammed lately. a short dirty (but scent free!)laundry list: unable to board a flight to oakland to see friends, or even do mundane things like errands or eating out or grocery shopping. discovering my father died, i happened to do a google search for his absent ass and found his obituary. serious neck pain...seriously. nothing gets done.  now my cat is missing...i got her when i first moved to the mountains, she's been with me for all of it. seems the city has swallowed her too.

oh sigh. insomnia does not wear well on me.

gonna put some shoes on and get in my little car now and drive. get over the mountain before the sunrise and keep the quiet with me.
xo

---

occupying the occupied and proof theres life beyong traffic and dryer vents.

October 1, 2011, 1:05 pm

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right now i'm stuck in my room waiting for the neighborhoods fucking laundry to be done but i managed to climb the mountain this morning...well my little car did...

my struggling for oxygen brain has been busy with this whole occupy wall street situation. How with a slight reframing, ok maybe a major rebuild, but with some shift and recentering i would be so much more excited....and you know, its exciting, but i've been digging into my hestitancy around it. my discomfort with the use of the word occupy, since as far as i can tell this is NOT an ironic statement about first nations people reclaiming stolen land and  all the rest of us rising up to dismantle america and fuck nationalism and all that. my discomfort with the american hollywood capitalism induced phenomenon where we...even radical folk...have to fucking NAME everything, coin a phrase, market it and watch it spread. occupy wall street, occupy santa fe, the battle of seattle, another fill in the blank is possible (my snark is showing now but i'm stuck in my room n cranky so...). my discomfort with the  white middle class able bodied core these protests are built on. worry that its a set up... a set up for the rest of us who are uneasy, have criticism. a set up like a western ghost town movie prop....all building fronts no buildings.
i want this to really be something big. thats lasts. that is precisely about a poor peoples uprising that at its core is folks of color and queers and crips...
but white supremacy runs deep. it colonizes. it occupies and re-occupies. and capitalism, hot damn, it'll swallow potential amazingnesss up and spit it back out at us so fast...so fast.
so yeah, shift the base, the message. the heart.

and even here stuck in my room waiting for the laundry fumes to let up, i can feel the collective busy brain, the hive mind. its a good thing.

random fabulous

October 9, 2011, 7:06 am

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me, in my room, where the air is a little more like air...

finished scarves...they are for sale! There are 4 of them. 2 are a bright lemon/lime with dark teal or light blue hand stitching at the ends. 2 are a bit wider and are a medium teal blue woven with an aloe green warp. price range is 40-55 dollars.

soft fuzzy tri-color llama yarn...also for sale...but really/also just showing you all because its fun to show and tell.

and then below are some examples of the gorgeous movement art from Dignidad Rebelde . political art gets me all excitied....

decolonizing 100%

October 10, 2011, 6:17 am

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so, i'm realizing one of the (many) evils of facebook is that all this information gets passed around  between myself and folks i'm connected to on that site but never here...so...at the risk of being redundant, but hoping these things might reach more folks, i want to post some links to writings about the "occupy" movement that have really moved me...

Occupy Wall Street: The Game of Colonialism and Further Nationalism to be Decolonized From the “Left”  by Jessica Yee

"...We don’t need more occupation – we need decolonization and it’s everyone’s responsibility to participate in that because COLONIALISM AFFECTS EVERYONE. EVERYONE! Colonialism also leads to capitalism, globalization, and industrialization. How can we truly end capitalism without ending colonialism? How does doing things in the name of “America” which was created by the imposition of hierarchies of class, race, ability, gender, and sexuality help that?"

An Open Letter to the Occupy Wall Street Activists  by JohnPaul Montano

"...I hope you would make mention of the fact that the very land upon which you are protesting does not belong to you – that you are guests upon that stolen indigenous land. I had hoped mention would be made of the indigenous nation whose land that is. I had hoped that you would address the centuries-long history that we indigenous peoples of this continent have endured being subject to the countless ‘-isms’ of do-gooders claiming to be building a “more just society,” a “better world,” a “land of freedom” on top of our indigenous societies, on our indigenous lands, while destroying and/or ignoring our ways of life. I had hoped that you would acknowledge that, since you are settlers on indigenous land, you need and want our indigenous consent to your building anything on our land – never mind an entire society."

A call for economic justice that reflects the occupation of this land, the role of the institution of slavery and immigration 

Susan Raffo

"In 1944, FDR spoke about the meaning of security for "post war" America.  As part of that speech and in response to the growing international focus on human (mostly political) rights, he called out for a "Second Bill of Rights" guaranteeing Economic Rights. These are the rights he suggested:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.

While not all of these were enacted, some, like Social Security, Medicaire and fair mortgage practices, were created. These are the very economic safety nets that the Right is politically working to end. But in 1944, FDR's call was not the only action taking place.

Also in 1944, The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) a Native American indigenous rights organization, was founded in response to the ongoing termination (otherwise known as genocide) and assimilation policies that the United States forced upon the tribal governments in contradiction of their treaty rights and status as sovereign entities.

1944 is also seen by many historians as the year the Black Civil Rights movement began as Black soldiers returned from fighting in WW II and began to organize. It is when NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall won Smith v. Allwright in the U.S. Supreme Court guaranteeing that "all-white" primary elections are unconstitutional, a landmark case in demanding Black political voice and Black agency.

1944 is also the year when the federal government ended the internment of Japanese families. It is the year after the US ended the Chinese Exclusion Act but created the Bracero program, a "guest worker" program that brought Mexican families to the US for low wage work without granting the benefits of citizenship.

Economic change in the US has always been directly tied to the history of the occupation of this indigenous land, the histories of the institution of slavery and its ongoing impact, and the histories of immigration and control. Sometimes economic change has benefited the mostly white middle class while largely ignoring those who are poorest or have least access to the political and legal benefits of citizenship. Sometimes economic change has happened precisely because of the political protests of the poorest and those with least access. And large scale economic change has always happened without taking into account the fact that the resources that feed economic health - land and the work that happens on top of that land - are resources taken from stolen land and a continuous history of broken treaties.

Let's do it differently this time."



and then lastly a piece i just read this morning which I believe balances all these conversations just perfectly...
from liberty plaza by Adrienne Maree

"I have been in movement spaces for a long time, and we have a way of doing things which is so steeped in critique that I have often wondered if we would strangle movement before it could blossom. sometimes I think we put up the critiques to excuse ourselves from getting involved, and sometimes I think we do it to protect our hearts from getting broken if it doesn’t work out. critique, alone, can keep us from having to pick up the responsibility of figuring out solutions. sometimes I think we need to liberate ourselves from critique, both internal and external, to truly give change a chance."

navigating pain

November 16, 2011, 5:13 am

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On a good day
I get to dance
Just for a minute,
2 minutes is bliss
not like I used to but oh the rhythm and the sway slight
but a ride down a river so sweet
air
has me in her arms
rhythm meets me half way through the fog
grabs me
makes me.

Article 19

December 29, 2011, 5:31 pm

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*picture is a stark open rural new mexico landscape, in the center of the picture is an old wooden roadside sign up high on wooden supports thats says "pigs", along side it runs an barbed wire fence with old wooden posts and off in the distance is a large hill and beyond that is a mountain range.

hard times and a bridge

January 5, 2012, 7:04 pm

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suspending
when i roll over
sun rising
and reach his chest with my waking hands run them
down his body my head resting there
exhaling dreams
inhaling
salt sharp butter sweet
the smooth warmth
of his skin how i read into this his heart
how it thaws me how can i not love him
even more how can i not desire this exact proximity
how can the rush not bring me home to every choice i've made
the choice to continue
breathing
desire bridging
lifes' beautiful rise
for this proximity
is bliss the risk of reaching
for this warmth this smooth summer lake stone
is the heart.

haunt.

March 4, 2012, 11:58 am

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During a recent unwell stint, stuck in bed, i watched way too much of a show called Being Human (uk!). i’ve been thinking about the character annie, who was a ghost. she was bound, more or less, to the house she died in and her situation rang so true for me and my quiet life. the way that sometimes, if the circumstances were just right, she could be seen by the living. sometimes only by mediums and always by super naturals like vampires and werewolves. I liken this to how occasionally if i’m well enough and the circumstances are just right I can be in the world. move through the public like a normal person.
be seen.
spoken to.
touched.
how more often than not the people i can spend time with, because they are accessible, are other crips.
the supernatural. they are the ones that get it. they understand difference and isolation.

while i’ve been dealing with ei/chronic illness and access for over a decade and a half now, i’ve felt more and more like a ghost in this last year. I've been so unwell, especially since the house flooded last winter. The city, my house and my neighbors have all become too much for me. people know i’m around but never see me. or see me briefly. My crip lover that i live with plays the medium, he always sees me and is often the conduit to the rest of the world.

annie struggled with having a purpose in the world. feeling useful. she made endless cups of tea that she couldn’t drink. when she could be seen by humans she relished in the experience.
in being kind and helpful.  in laughter.
but mostly she rattled around the house she died in. waiting. scheming ways to connect.
sometimes succumbing to the non-life she was living.
just staring out windows.
waiting.

but thing is, i’m not a ghost. haven’t died yet.
not.
dead.
yet.
and believe me i know dead people. i know their ether. their reach.
and ghosts. ghosts are roaming haunting loss.
i want to be more than this. more than loss draped in a good laugh with a keen eye for tricks of light.
i want to feel -here-.
for ghosts there is no recovery.
my blood is moving and recovery is mine to embrace.
i've got shit to say and things to learn. people to touch and love.
supernaturally alive and spitting.

so here's to access eh?
and risk.
to remembering that the struggle to connect is precisely life.
i know this.

---

pandora picks aaliyah

March 14, 2012, 11:36 am

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this song

takes me back

to what seems now like youth into saturn return

and you

and that crappy old car radio with the broken cassette

and all that washboard

and all that open space

and all that dust kicking up into our skin

into that tiny mountain cabin

candles burning hot we would fuck like the earth was opening

then primp for the bar in the flickering light

while the radio crackled and hissed

pop songs

drove steep dirt roads in the night

you kept a baseball bat behind your seat

you held my hips while i danced

this song takes me back

to need heavy

old as the hills butch femme

lust

damage

and revenge

and that old truck that broke your arm

you kept a rag stuffed into the hole where the gas cap shoulda been

you had to the hit the starter with a metal pipe to get it to turn over

i loved watching you pop the hood climb in there and beat that engine

made me wanna turn you over take you back

you pulled femme shine from my stone

like brilliant cholla flowers from santa fe sun

like prayer under my breath

i still ask

for your forgiveness

for my own anger made my breaking drove

our screeching

what i’ve learned from us

how i’ve changed

how together we were fumes and flame

combustion

but also climbed into the woods and sat

in wild silence

watched spiders spin webs

laughed at bird song

but you

like aaliyah

are gone now

just memories and spirit

kicking up like dust once

in while when music takes me unawares

turns me over

takes me back

like saturn returning

to you.

air.

July 14, 2012, 6:17 am

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after months and months of searching, thinking i'd found something then searching some more...I finally found myself a little get away. just for a little while. I stayed for the first time last week and it was surreal, the quiet. the peeling away of layer after layer of exhaustion, exposure and over stimulation. 4 days and all i did was wander from the porch to the field to the kitchen to eat and back to the porch. listening. watching.
and an odd thing to be in a rural place and not have chores to do, no livestock to feed, water or move. no garden or fiber work to tend. and so hard to to resist fixing the house. its sorely neglected. I fight the urge to replace the hinges on the door or just replace the damn door all together, pull up old floor boards on the porch, put up gutters an sort out the drainage off the roof....i resist...since i'll only be here for another month.
and you know, i love new mexico, but I think chacon just spoiled it for me. my mountain home was the most beautiful place EVER. there just isn't anything else like it, and those of you that visited me there will know what i mean. green pasture, old growth forest, stands of aspen, rushing rivers and burbling spring water. unfortunately now it seems everywhere else is beautiful...but...
dry. prickly. barren.
so with this rental, the thing i truly enjoy is the old house. i fuckin love an old house. and of course the open space, just endless acres of human free space. yum.
I'll add more pictures soon....

*photo is of the old adobe farmhouse at sunset with the huge towering elm tree in the front yard defined by a split rail fence.

*photo is of my dog agatha on the front porch next to an old wooden chair and a daffodil yellow loveseat blocking one of the doorways to the house. the porch floor is buckling wooden planks, the roof is old maroon tin on top of latillas.

*photo is a view of the front porch length wise and the open space pasture beyond.

*photo is of  the side of the house at sunset with my little toyota corrolla parked in front and next to that, and larger than that, is a sorrel arabian mare grazing.

*photo is of an old root cellar, no longer in use, the doorway to it built into a dirt mound.

*photo is of one of the old 4 pane sash windows.


*photo is of the west facing side porch on the house, sunset lit, with wooden and wrought iron bench for sitting.

more air.

July 21, 2012, 7:43 am

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Trying to appreciate the land here. And it is truly beautiful to look at. Not so amazing to walk through. In fact, I find taking walks here brings up anxiety for me. Its as though the land screams “ I cannot sustain you!” parched cracked earth, nothing edible, no where soft to even sit and rest. It’s intense. I respect it for its intensity and I’m thankful for the clean air of open space but this land doesn’t welcome or encourage nesting. It’s spiny barbed and fending for its own self, its closer creatures. Humans need to keep moving.

And just like that the rain comes. Heavy and prolonged. Then hail. So loud it drowns out everything else,

the rattling old fridge the semi trucks on the highway. All animals fall quiet and still.

And then just again, the sun.

And steam rising.

Ditches running glimmering in the sudden light.

Sometimes while I’m here I can’t quite believe what I’m breathing. That the air is clean. I have to remind myself to inhale…truly inhale. That it’s ok to do so. In fact, it’s why I’m here. The air feels like cool water down my throat. Like silk lines my lungs. Feathers.

let go.

August 1, 2012, 7:16 am

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-->

 And all of a sudden today I leave here for good. For the second day now, I woke up in the morning not feeling well at all. Can’t breath, eyes crusted shut, glands swollen.

It’s the mold. Too much for me. While all the rain has been lovely, this old house can't handle it. What began as a faint musty smell has bloomed into east coast basement smell. The point of coming here is to feel better not just a different kind of sick. So that’s it. Such a quick turn around, but I know in my bones I have to go. So I’ve spent the day packing up when what I thought today would be was sketching and writing and –breathing-.

Methodical and too familiar, I begin with my clothes, towels, bedding.
Then books, arts supplies, movies. Boxes. Bags.

Moving mode is like a ghost at my back. Triggering.
I’ve done this too many times. Too many.

Adrenaline arrives to carry me.

I’m efficient, numb to my surroundings.

Can’t rest til its done.

but the land keeps poking me , piercing the numb with humming or blue birds, tiny horny toads or a soft warm clean wind across the open endless grass.

and pierced, I weep.
Then gather myself and push on...toothbrush, soaps and lotion.

 Lastly, I dismantle my little shrine, bury the  contents of the bowl (dirt, seeds, a small petition, a blue candle ) in the yard at the base of the fruit tree sapling. I drop the coins down the old hand dug well in front of the house and make a wish.

Actually 2.

Country home.

Enough.

fall things.

September 26, 2012, 7:04 pm

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 (photo is a close shot of a garden bed, mulched with straw and a few tiny tiny one day old kale sprouts peeking through.)

 (photo is of the view out my shed door, from my desk. Outside it is late day sun lighting up a small apple tree sapling and behind that is my firewood stacked up against a cement block wall with a huge very green tree hanging overhead)

(photo is of me and my dog agatha. I've got this scrappy old straw hat on and a white a-shirt. My face is partially blocked by her black and white spotted ear, only half her face is visible. She is dog-smiling. We are sitting together in the back of my car)

( photo is a close up of a flower called a black eyed susan that is brilliant orange with a pitch black center.)

self preservation toolbox inventory #1

September 29, 2012, 10:39 am

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recognizing the feeling, the hollow heartbeat discomfort in my body that tells me I'm dealing with an untenable privilege dynamic in a relationship cuz it feels like everything i say is dramatic/traumatic/bad news/stress and their company makes me feel the draft where my safety net should be.

an end to able bodied rhetoric.

October 17, 2012, 1:50 pm

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I wanted to chime in on the chorus of brilliant replies and comments from folks on B. leowes circulating article "an end to self care". I'll link some of my faves below. they cover many things i wish i had the time and energy to speak to, like the classism and sexism present, and the deeply triggering nature of the ableism, and just how interdependent self care and community care truly are. this is a work in progress for me, for all of us...but here's whats on the forefront for me right now...

i often struggle with copious amounts of shame, frustration and confusion over the fact that right now in my life all i have to give is going towards helping raise 2 children. It can feel deeply unradical, ordinary and anonymous. it is adding exponentially to my already intense isolation. While not my intention, my world has become this house, this home. As someone who is disabled and chronically ill, i am tapped . if i don't take time to space out and watch shadows dance on my wall, or have a hot shower, roll around on a tennis ball to keep my neck from going out, scroll thru fucking facebook, grow kale or whatever the hell i can manage that feels -still- and healing,  i won't be able to make dinner and clean it all up.
if no one makes dinner, the children don't eat.
children need to eat.
and these are not "my" children in the biological or legal sense, but i love them, we are family in the queerest loveliest sense, and i want to do my part in helping them become the best humans they can be. i want to help them navigate the violence and brutal complexity in the world, i want them to understand privilege and love and compassion and accountability.
articles like b. loewes' and the larger presence of this brand of deep running ableism in "movement work" just nail the shame and frustration firmly in place.
B. suggests that if we are unable to work endlessly for the movement, it is because we are not connected to our purpose. this suggests that what we -are- doing : caring for ourselves so that we can care for others, cleaning, cooking, crafting,  repairing, listening, teaching, recovering, is not movement work.

i certainly struggle with the loss of what feels like my life before i decided to live with children.
and i now can spot a mile off the lives and work of those that don't have dependants...it has, how do you say, a certain je ne sais quoi. a certain level of self absorption.
and while i might roll my eyes, i'd be lying if i didn't say i miss this.

but i also am aware that a degree of this new layer of loss and isolation i'm experiencing  is connected to the dominant, rooted in patriarchy idea that revolution isn't about raising children or helping each other with the mundane domestic task of surviving another day.
folks just always seem to have better things to do than help with someones kids, or just help someone.
and this is capitalism at work yeah? its a set up. there is not enough. not enough time/money/energy.
and revolution. well...it's THE thing.
but heres the thing, the front lines aren't linear. they aren't always dramatic. they
aren't -out-there-. they are everywhere, including the kitchen. including the bedtime story and the hands on love of being present for need.

i'm learning to think less in terms of productivity, esp. since framing life that way will certainly end me, and think more in terms of sustaining...sustenance...support. this flies in the face of my lower class life that screams produce, keep the cards close or die. it challenges the ableism in my working class roots, the internalized high stakes drive to succeed. to avoid being trash. or criminal.

This ableism lives on in radical political movements. It pushes out us sick ones and blames us for it.

ableism is dangerous. swallowing eugenic poison.

i'm learning that self love, self care and community care go together, they twine effortlessly with raising community and revolution. that i am doing the work, even shadow watching, even dish washing, even heart beating, even now.





here's the links i mentioned earlier...enjoy. and a nod to all the brilliant conversation between crips that let me realize that there was a reason, a buncha reasons, why B. Loewes article was so upsetting.

http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2012/10/for-badass-disability-justice-working-class-and-poor-lead-models-of-sustainable-hustling-for-liberation.html

https://www.facebook.com/notes/bruin-christopher/my-response-to-an-end-to-self-care/10152210543650232

http://midnightapothecary.blogspot.com/

http://organizingupgrade.com/index.php/modules-menu/community-care/item/737-care-is-the-core-of-change

http://www.spectraspeaks.com/2012/10/response-to-an-end-to-self-care-community-care-how-about-an-end-to-the-martyr-complex/

---

poem for the dead

October 24, 2012, 9:05 am

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haunting

I get to thinking on my bones

like star dust

not mine to have just to pass through

I get to thinking on your bones
like tree limbs

lying on the forest floor

or yours

buried in the dirt of mount hope

yours of ash
once arms full of firewood

get to thinking things like

homeland

mothers

lovers

dust

home in the water

migration

your fingers

the bed you died in

haunt me

all of you

its your time

to speak

like rustling leaves

to the ground

hustle and move me

remind me about the other side

of loss

about time arching over to knit

all the bones into blankets of light
I’m here to remember

yours.

My new chapbook take 2...!

November 25, 2012, 3:21 pm

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 after some technical -how to pay for it- issues that i believe i've fixed, i'm posting this again!

My newest, most lovely, humble and razor sharp chapbook is available for 5 bucks! There are 38 pages of poetry crafted with outrage and love.

Bird song is a collection of my favorite pieces over the last decade that center around love and loss, healing and recovery. The radical act of remembering.

This is the first chapbook I've ever made that didn't involve glue sticks and white out... fancy! I don't yet have an audio version to offer, but that's next on the to do list!

Your purchase will not only help me make those elusive ends meet but also generate plenty of warm fuzzy expansive feelings and of course more poetry!

Many thanks to sebastian who helped so so much technically and with heaps of moral support!

...and thanks in advance to all you lovely folk.

you can purchase it on my Etsy shop!

tool shed poetry

January 12, 2013, 2:00 pm

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a hard rake

drags thru the debris
turning up broken
glass
history
rusty nails
bottle caps packed
with grief
leaves
stones too heavy
to move
churns up reason
leaves
salt and sand

beetle shells
and hope
tills
over to the light

a hard rake
breaks soil
hearts

leaves.

Body Check

May 8, 2013, 9:12 pm

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I.

I owned 3 wigs in high school.

3 wigs and a pony tail extension.

Wig shops downtown were always a mystery from the sidewalk.

The interior always some variety of mustard yellow, black, silver

and heavy with mirrors.

The endless rows of styrofoam heads.

The sweet chemical smell of beauty and the stale bitter smell of endless cigarettes.

Places where aging, poverty, illness, self-love and adornment converged.

Lucky for me I was naturally flamboyant

dramatic.

I loved all the big divas.

Rhinestones

show tunes and the stage.

Old wing tip shoes, paten leather heels and men’s suit coats,

deep red lipstick, liquid eyeliner, leopard print.

So when my hair began to fall out

the wigs

they came as an easy solution to hide the illness.

It’s really shitty to be 16 and have your hair fall out. 

Always on the out looking in

balding was too much.

It gave me away, screamed sick

damaged

failing

vulnerable.

Screamed lost cause

too much.

too loudly.

But the wigs

the outfits that went with each wig

it was all day theater.

The art of passing .

Smoke and mirrors razzle-dazzle.

Ever crafty and resourceful

I reinvented my sick ass into something audacious

unreal.

The illusion of  everything is just fine 

spun by a sick and scrambling queer.

                                                                                                                                                                                         

II.

Starving not cutting

which I tried but it didn’t work for me

like the slower blade of wasting

Since I was little

I’ve swallowed trauma

It lives in my belly

A time-release poison

Designed to kill

self love

Feeds me restriction feeds me self destruct

It  is why

despite being brilliant at everything I’ve taken up

I lose it

like milk through my fingers

I carve out people like portions of food

Restrict myself right outta living

Perpetuate the drought

The not quite suicide of hunger

addiction

The intricate dance with poverty and the necessity to eat less

fits neatly into success

lives on the lean edge of bone

right up under the skin

where the ends meet only to cut themselves free

The control I need

when money is outta my hands

Milk through my

cold finger hands

Bone first hands

On ribs for security hands

tenuous will to live

hands

put back the food

Save it for the rain

that doesn’t come.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
III.

my body

is a hook

20 years away from bulimic

but anorexic hangs

on my back

drapes around me a thread bare coat

my gut

if I could

if I’m honest

I’d empty it

like a  bowl

not for holding anything

purely decorative

and empty

I’m hard wired for that next to the bone feeling

having a handle on it all

a hook to hang my baggage on

my body

a living breathingargument

always the chatter in the background of my days

always worried if there’s food to eat

always worried if I will eat it

always worried if what I chew will actually be swallowed

if what I put in it willreally digest

and if what I put in it will come out

if it will all come out

for a while after I stopped purging

I couldn’t bend over

without the contents of my stomach

automatically rushing up to my throat

with perspective

I have recovered

survived

but still I waste

                                                                                                                                                                                          
I’m hooked

hung up

hunger is handled

like a bank account

handled

like an almost emptied

bowl

of water and

worry.

                                                                                                                                             

gintaras

November 4, 2013, 3:46 pm

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the day the moon swallowed the sun

and the clocks went back

the light

was amber when I woke

there was mist and rainbow

I wonder if I’ve paid enough attention to the dead

are their stories in me

had I listened close 

before they began their journey 

on the back of the moon

with a plan to have the sun

for breakfast

I make toast and tea

think of my immigrant father

and the war trauma he carried in his young heart

when he left

think of  the women

edna

gladys

mary

nellie

and so many more

enduring great lake winters

with Baltic sea air in their lungs

factories, shops and children bearing

lithuanian memories

with nursing home endings

closing their eyes and seeing the amber light

resin that endures and adorns

dreams.