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.
self preservation toolbox inventory #1
↧
↧
an end to able bodied rhetoric.
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/
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
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
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
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.
I’m here to remember
yours.
↧
My new chapbook take 2...!
after some technical -how to pay for it- issues that i believe i've fixed, i'm posting this again!
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
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
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
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.
↧
Nesting Doll
Some days I’m still her
she is inside me like a nesting doll
some days I split open
and there she is
still that crass and skinny cast off
a pre teen beauty queen
learning to work
in a halter top mini- skirt
and leg warmers
swaying and twirling her way around the skate rink
to Journey
Rick James
Joan Jett
lovin rock n roll in her glitter stained roller skates
lovin rock n roll in her glitter stained roller skates
hair feathered roach clips
and teased lips
red and her high heels waiting in the rental locker
lights swirling
lights swirling
she’s thinking
I’ve got this
I'm ok, ya know?
just ok.
just ok.
the lights will save me
the movement will save me
I'm worth saving
the movement will save me
I'm worth saving
a bigger me will grow
up and around this mess like armour
and having stayed alive til puberty
having carried it all
like a bag of knives
this girl will get to rest
she’ll get to nest.
↧
Article 3
-->
after the first hard freeze everything rattles
what was flowers and swishing green is now stiff and seedless
shades of brown and yellow
rattling in a wind that says to me
gather some around you
stash some elsewhere
hammer tight the roof nails
burn something.
↧
↧
when dogs
dream and their feet paddle and their lips twitch and snarl
they are fighting chasing hunting playing
I dream about pretty young men wanting me
wake heart racing
chasing youth
I dream about my animals
wake crying out
I dream about home
I know board feet I know rafters
dogs dream like water carving a desired path
play fight chase
↧
Article 1
image: a watercolor painting of a leafless tree, mostly a view of the trunk, offcenter, with a few long slender branches spreading out parallel to the ground. tree is ribbons of orange red and brown, the sky is ribbons of bright blue.
↧
Article 0
↧
love poem to depression
me in your deep
dirty pockets
smell like home
help me once again slip
into that threadbare shirt
that’s worn itself down on my stubborn frame
cloak
my thoughts till they curve
beneath the weight of all that
insistent one on one
reliable
if you’re anything at all
but vapor or an occasional smoke
occasional pen in hand
on occasion
I make a list of things to do
then as I cross them off you’re roused
to reach for me
but my poems
they make you slow smile
sit back
and wait
it’s a chemical love story
we are unspoken tracks in the flesh
we are bloom and wilt and bloom again
til death do us part into stars
complete
a dirty pocket dweller
a high beam burning up
a fleeting springtime bloom
of this won’t last
there’s nothing to fix.
↧
↧
the balm
is in the foggy river valley
the budding cottonwoods
teeming with bird song
the train rolling through
↧
sap rising
-->
cottonwood comes slowly
to green
first the buds
swell beaded with golden
healing resin
then catkins
bursting tassles of femme
birthdays
laughter
and parades of gay
then the leaves
bright lime unfolding
lace fans of vitality into a waxy deep green
that reflects sun on shimmering rivers
then the hearts rustle the hustle of being alive
a money tree shakes with stars
![]()
↧
years of desire
in the dark of your mouth
where the words come
up to tell me
Hold very still
Show me
how good you can be
↧
grief is a beast
a hard lover
smoke
that leaves
debris lodged
unseen and dangerous
inside
a deep calm body
of grey water
grief
is bodies becoming
battleground
ghosts
becoming
only hearts
only blue suffocated blood
circulating through us just lookin for holes
grief is a hole
vacates
whenever
returns
whenever
↧
↧
Article 1
image: text reads "immigrants and refugees welcome here" on a light orange background with a large pink wild rose in the center and smaller dark green leaves of a rose bush with buds and rose hips framing the text.
↧
when heartbreak
puts your back out pulls
an endless supply of ocean from your eyes
and hot water makes you howl and moan
makes you take inventory counting bills
in every hidden envelope
in every hidden envelope
means you lie flat on hot then cold turned carefully
so some of that shit’s gonna be ok sunshine
so some of that shit’s gonna be ok sunshine
soaks the soles of your feet
when ghost cats purr in your lap
when time drowns in shock
and love is root stock, terpenes and salt
heartbreak rolls stone
exposes grief curling up shocked at the sudden light
decocts tannins and flowers with thorns
boundaryless body pain that stops you
means nothing at all
but steep and wait
stroke ghosts
don't drown
↧
I am not Orlando
I’m a lot of things survivor
one bad turna luck from hungry
I’m sick and low class and as queer
as it comes shocked and I’m grieving
but I am not Orlando
colonization did not destroy my homeland
demonize my heart
leave me lookin for sanctuary
on a dazzling dance floor of family rhythms and tongues
leave my open joy a target
and yeah,
I started hitting the bars at 15
twirling under lights or tucked up in back corner darkness
riding out something horrible in the humid n heaving
safety of the club
but whiteness took me takes me home safer than most
handed me the power of citizenship at birth
hell, even in the welfare line I’ve got “potential”
and my fellow white trans and queer folk
while we mire in rainbow slick pools of grief and privilege
let’s remember this
white supremacy is designed to strip us of depth and meaning
leave us empty save for that unspilled lavender blood
eager for narratives that simulate connection
since privilege only disconnects
whiteness always harvests trauma
serves it up with heightened security
rainbow cops
gay friendly prison TV shows
and how quickly all the queer and trans black and brown ghosts
are woven seamlessly into grant deadlines and no fly lists
right along side our most tender truest bleeding hearts
and I’m a lotta things,
the colonizers daughter,
a sick and useless casualty of capitalism,
a bottom feeder
and I know death and I know loss
but whiteness gets me through it safer than most
less a target and not a ghost
so my fellow white queers
lets not harvest lets not honeymoon
and call it equality
lets not settle down on top of black, brown n indigenous lives and consume
lets not whitewash this trauma and hand it to profit
lets not whitewash 500 years of resistance
lets not call the cops
let’s check our legacies
shift our resistance to deep foundational change
let’s call each other over
call each other in
cuz while we are a lot of things all tender,
fucked up and beautiful
we are not Orlando
↧
femme full moon
I’m with the witches
and the whores
the seeded queens
the beauty makers
the rusty dragons
downers
and loose change
I’m with risk
and a bad turn
I eat the rich
like a spell casting
pre- internet harlot
I’m in it for the cash crop
I’m with thorns
the stay the fuck off me
the make a wish moon
the seeded
I’m with water
and the rusted beauty
she creates
the seeded
queens that teach us love.
↧
↧
negative space
the morning is cloudy
smells like water
and the sky is full of cranes and their cooing
song says
stay warm
move as you must
sing
I need the sky full of cranes to fill the space you are not in
I need soft steady companions
I need purpose
and as the mundane and the routines come slowly back
into focus
into focus
I realize they are the remedy
the dirty dishes are there to ground me cover my hands
in warm moving water
the laundry waits for me
in warm moving water
the bath waits for me
to come clean
come back
move as i must
stay warm
I need to fill the spaces you are not in
I need to feed the cat
I need to warm water
for a tea of roses
I need all the roses
I need my lovers soft steady hands to bring my skin back
from following you out to the negative space
that waits for us all
I gave you my softest steadiest hands
cooing to you
cooing to you
as you died
I caught it all in a
small cup of water
I poured it onto rosemary
this morning
beneath the cranes.
-for Agatha
↧
sick femme love liberation incantation
I want to know your pain
hold it up to the light of my own
let them touch
lean linger
love the familiar
bones of honesty
the world hits
hard breaks bruises
and terrifies
delights in our masks of able
while we drown
wears down bone to sea glass
so let’s celebrate our sea glass survival
beautiful
spill all the broken worn and translucent remains
out
onto the kitchen table between us and weep salt
in our knowing
no masks
↧
water sign
what did I inherit from my mother but an animal heart
and cardboard boxes of flight?
genetics
infused w preverbal trauma
unearthed memories of near death
synapses clutched up in knots
vigilance = survival
vigilance= survival
freeze
track the predator with disappearing eyes
I have to remember to unclench my hands
find my heart
my pulse my murky river of blood
full of cortisol and thc
I sink
into a hot bath sometimes 3 times
a day
in between
I study water
it’s memory
it’s capacity to hold and heal
to infuse
I study survival
I study wounds and their open purpose
I can almost remember mine
I can almost remember my mothers
that narrow bridge from the adrenaline laced womb
to my own fight or flight
vigilance of an animal heart
where I rewrite history with endless water
and keep the littlest me
safe from heartless carnivores
babies should be clear rivers
babies should not be
boxes built to fill with wounds
decades in storage
carefully opening each one over years
I lay them out in the sun
one by one by one
pour honey into the pain
I’ve inherited instinct
I’ve cultivated dirt and spit and thorn thick
protection spells
for
babies
should be water
soothing, turbulent, resilient and healing
brilliant open animals
↧
ode to a pulse beneath
when she laughed I knew home
calling in falling leaves heavy skies wide hipped denim clad women
she laughed rough stars and all the snark that reclaims our joy
she laughed good dirt
and the secrets to loving through relentless pain
she laughed loud cackling fuck this shit still alive flames and flowers
its been some 15 years but I woke this morning with a night gift
and I could hear her laughing
I could feel what it gave me
what it dislodged, turned out and lit
and I wept for missing rough unabashed joy in my life
everything is so serious now
counting bones and years like coins
so often alone, all that snarky joy tucked into potting soil
and boxes of ash
I’m casting this poem like spell
I’m calling in a night storm
I’m asking for flames and flowers.
↧
↧
More Pages to Explore .....
