Centered

No matter my weakness,
No matter my failure,
If this is it,
If this is as good as it gets,
I am proud to say,
That in all of my life,
I accomplished this.

My Favorite Goodbye

Today is my goodbye to 2007 and I'm having a blast!

I am going to bury it with all the flare of a Viking funeral and glory in what I've turned myself into thus far while embracing the me I wish to fully be.

I had mentally set aside 2008 as an exciting year since my birthday will be 08-08-08 and I love things in threes. But, that was long ago ... long before I thought the year 2000 was a thing I would touch. When you are a child, anything that you cannot feel immediately is far, far away, and NOW, back then, was just that.

Far, far away.

Back then, I would use my future self as a focal point. My anchor to the future to pull myself and hold myself to my goals.

Now, while watching the innocence in my children's eyes and the purity of their love for all the things they love, I have chosen a new focal point.

Today is an exciting day for me. I have prepared for this mental shift for a long time and I am enjoying the snakelike slithering out of a skin that was beautiful while it was mine.

Today I kiss every part of me that I've built and I say, good job, Ms. Johnson.

I bid farewell to the anchor that I have clenched for my entire life, and, so far, this is my favorite goodbye.

Dear Sasha:

Dear Sasha:

About your muse,

While you’re chewing on her,
Does she chew you up too?
While you’re drinking her to get that warm part of you warm,
Dear Sasha,
please tell me,
is she drinking you too?

Are you broken when you find her
or are you you and then she breaks you?

Is yours poison like mine?
Does she kill as she breeds?
Does she make you fat to make her full?

If not,
then,
Dear Sasha,
please teach her to me.

52 Post 52

What if?

What if is good.
It makes us flip inside out and being inside out is good

if we are born
to be oh so bad
then
being inside out of ourselves must be the goodest of goods

so, let’s jump on this rug and make ourselves flip
insideout
let’s get inside out of ourselves and when our right selves bump into each other’s right selves,
for once,
baby,
we get it right

wanna get it right everytime with me
let’s get inside out
wanna go with me?

not gonna cure you, but it’s gonna feel good
wanna get inside out next to me getting inside out and see if we are really just one

are you real?

You ask how

I grab my SELF and I grab my RIGHTNOW and I hold on tight to both and smash them together until they are ONE.

That's my way.

Have you found yours?

Lovesong (to Insomnia and Lost Stuff)

I'm about to go make a bad decision or two.

If you love me, please make me stop

make me stop make me stop make me stop

make me stop on my way out of the blue room to turn off my ringer so i won't be interrupted

i'm gonna stay up late and watch a movie that i borrowed from me mum because i want so very badly to stop thinking for half a second and let the world unwind itself from the jawbone of my mind

and you

i want so very badly to stop thinking for half a second about you

***

i call it lovesong to missing gat damm digital camera cord and gat damm missing remote control batteries and banged shins and having to wedge my body in through a crack in my unwheeled sliding patio door which i absolutely love, by the way

Guilty as

sin,

that is,

IF sin's where you've been,

cuz, mister, I'm guilty of you,
cuz, mister, I'm guilty of you,
yes, mister, I'm guilty of you.

wherever you've been,
i've been there too,
cuz, mister, I'm guilty of you.

i'm guilty as sin,
if sin's where you've been,
cuz, mister, i'm guilty of you
i'm guilty as guilty ol' you.

Charged

the in-bee tween you and me stuff is just like it is here but it's ... well, with no big or small space, just magnet purple sky that sucks the best of you and the best of me up into it and then chews up our bodies and vomits them kerplunketyplunketydustbowlsplat into the eye of the storm that's created when you mix up the best of you and the best of me ... well, it's a swirling, sucking twistlooptyloop cycle of you and me bits that resembles a litter-filled texas tornado, but the litter is just denser bits of you or me, and then, my favorite, the sparkly bits, that youmeglup

the in-bee tween you and me stuff, that's some potent shit

Nothing of the sort

God, this is good.

But, what makes it pretty damn perfect is this:

It's good hot and is pretty wow because it smells up the whole house with that warm kinda melty sweet smell. Of course, that's good. But, when that same food can kinda chill with you, like they say not to do in a food handler's course - like you get up early Christmas morning to make scrambled eggs and chocolate chip panty cakes and then you eat some then ... and you know the house smells wow because you stepped outside ... and you were only gone a second, but then, when you came back in, wow ... it smells like warm scrambled eggs and chocolate chip pancakes and little boys soap and clean hair and christmas - yup - smells like straight christmas in here - so, at that exact moment - muah!

the food is swell.

but, then, you let it chill, all bundled up together in a foggy little huddle - forgotten in the kitchen while the real fun explodes on the other side of the wall - boom - boom - boom - big smiles and bigger laughs and the only thing bigger's the hugs, and the food, eggs on bottom in a do not microwave senselessly frilly open dutch oven thingie with the pancakes, chocolate chip on the bottom, thin crispy buttery plain ones stacked on top, on top - in a plate - stacked on top of the dutch oven thingie, kinda like a lid - and, you know ... it makes the bottom of the plate all steamy and foggy and that makes the chocolate oh so allthetimegooey, but the thin crispy plain ones are not touching the chocolate at all, so ...

it's sitting there chillin', the whole time you're chillin'

sittin there lookin like you're enjoying your time, but you’re fightin down bile that's fightin against your fight like a ragin blizzard

that amidoingtherightthingfortheselittleboysoramihopelesslyfuckingthemupgodihopeimnotfuckingthemuptheselittleangelsaretherealestrealmadeupoftherealestshitieverseenandgodpleasedontletmebefuckingthemupletmebelovedsomedaylikeestherandzpleasegodpleasegodpleasegodplease
kinda bile that snakes up a mom's throat about a million or a dozen times a day.

And when the presents are already divided up into the naturally ordered chaotic piles of tighter and tighter swirls of wrapping paper, toy and packaging and making its way in tighter and tighter and lines – routes, if you will, backyard, patio, open gate, dumpster, open gate, in, or – blue room, boys room, toy box, closet, bed, or – like me, to a chair.

boom

Little boom. Not a sonic. boom.

... so, of course, it’s those thin, crispy, oily, salty, buttery plain ones that aren’t touching the chocolate at all that you reach for first.

they chill so well.

roll it up and while your nostrils are telling your mouth you are about to inhale a tongue-full of warm and melty, allthetimegooey chocolate you taste nothing of the sort and it’s

so

damn

good

CraveDread

Where were you the last time you sighed and said, this is heaven...

did you spread and wiggle all of your toes?

did you curve each curve you could find with your spine?

then, I guess your heaven's a little less heavenly than mine...

Flame

The flame does not kill the moth.

Jumping into the flame ...

That kills the moth.

Go to WARD it, not IN to it.

Push.
Pull.
REST

And, now, REST.

And, you know what else I think?

I think that NOW is the only thing that ever is.

I think that NOW has no beginning and no end and I think that I can't comprehend that, but I think that by accepting it and by recognizing it and realizing it that maybe just maybe I'm expressing gratitude and love toward a God who is bigger, better, faster more better than me

and,

after all,

isn't that how I'd want to be loved?

Addiction is Addiction

Only the poison varies.

That's what I wrote in a yellow notebook that I can't find right now.

You know what I think?

I think that to realize NOW is to just slow one's SELF down so that oneself slows down and you begin to see NOW through REAL EYES.

Real eyes realize.

Like a blind man's.

Like a one who's been touched by God.

Train to Albany Girl

I wrote this 08.22.07 (the day before my daughter, Faith, would have turned 9)

***

This is today and today is the very day I found this book.

It was lying face down on my piled-up-with-crap dresser. It looked like one of Benjamin's journals, and I love journals. But, here's what: I never kept one.

So, I find this black notebook today.

It makes me pause. You know pause. Yes?

Pause. Okay. You're sitting on a train trying to imagine the thrill of a few minutes from now when you are barefoot at home posting "spider pig" Amie-sprinkled fun songs on MySpace. You're on this train, and this ain't the South. It's hard to fix a disinterested gaze in mid-air when all the air you see is people-covered. So, you're headed to Albany and there's so much circus and way too many clowns, and then you look up and see this girl.

Pause.

Tu sabe pause? Train to Albany girl. Upside-down black notebook. Same thing - same thing.

Pause.

Pick a color, King James.
Pink.
Pink? Wow. Out of every color, I would not have guessed that.

Just tell me one thing, Boss. Tell me the again the Albany Train Girl story.

Raelynn, I mean, Abby - Jadju's out tonight.

Mama, I probably shouldn't be leaving this message, because by the time you get it and look at the sky, to look at the moon, the circle will be gone.

D? I don't remember playing cards together. Do you? That's a random question. we played something at your uncle's house. Phase 10. With Abby. The 3 of us. I did not know that until today.

It's funny how much of life we forget. Or maybe it's sad.
...But, not for me, because I remember now!

(D shakes his head and looks like he's thinking how-do-I-put-up-with-this-crazy-girl, but all he'll say is, "Goofball!")

Only wisp oils in water vapor magnet purple sky
Bloom afield a murky lot of booming booming sky.

She had on a red top. The best part was her smile because it was so cute, and ... and it was perfect like a little kid's smile.

Plus, she had beautiful lips - they were so full ... and when she smiled?

When she smiled, her eyes lit up.

She was just nice.
... and wasn't intimidating even though she was drop-dead gorgeous.

"That's a random question."

I innocently turn around just when I knew his hate would still be in his glare. I gotta sit real deep in myself at the office these days.

Thirty years. All I can say is I don't know how to stop. Instead, I say Hmph! and I look down my nose & I know that she knows that I've lost. She knows I am naked and thoroughly shamed. I hate her so much cuz she won't look away.

(and then, in green ink at the bottom of the page, I wrote: page 12 of 17 from 2004. maybe I had it write [sic] the first time.)

Yes, you are

she starts with the last page first and, that is for carla jo

s
o
.
.
.

that is one of the reasons this is an insideout



another reason this is an insideout is that 1217Bee named this baby before it was born

another reason this is a swell insideout is that i know you are torn
between
between
between
likepeanutbutterwhitebreadroofofmouthstuckin
betweenbetweenbetween

there’s no way that i can, but i do, and you are, so i know you are


torn


inbetweeninbetweeninbetween

the you you are now’s a you you’ve never been
and you’re torn in two trying to run back and forth
betweenbetweenbetween
between

between the you you are now
and the you you will be
for, just like i’d hoped you’ve continued to read

to read is to learn
what the writer is learning
you read you ‘cuz you’re what i’m writing
i’m saying it
i’m telling you,
but you still don’t know it
there’s no
way
i
can do that, so therefore i’m not
to you,
to you,
to you,
to you

to you, i am not, so ...

to you, i’m not.

Peace Monster

Start off slow
Don’t bite
Don’t chew
Just let it be
&
You
Be
You
Next to it

Don’t try to eat it or it will eat you

Sin, Salt & Me

Happy to bee to bee to bee
Happy to bee a part of this shade
Part of this made in the lemonade day
Happy to bee to be just a bee, to be
the bee part of this lemonade day
this water sprinkler, green grass, shade-dappled, leafy sky, shade
made in the lemonade shade
made in the lemonade shade
shady day
shady day
shady day

like salt,
like salt,
like me
like sin
like salt
like me

who knows what it does or if and when it’ll kill ya
but it keeps catching you and sending you back
to that place where you want just a bit more

so stop there
and let this be the season
the season of me
push,
pull,
rest
then, everything, everything else,
but always back
to the season of me

only we spoil sin by letting it linger
lick it on your way to your best and leave it behind and go be your best and then when it’s time to taste just a taste,
you taste just a taste

don’t go all Winnie-the-pooh with a honey pot on me,
a dab’ll do ya

sin, salt, and me

Two Below

Only we spoil sin
King james said there is pleasure in it
For a season

And

You say
You say
You say
You say

You say
King james
He say
To everything
There is a season

We drove a van to ms morrison’s
And now we go in a borrowed car
Full of tears and full of cheers
And five hearts desperately waiting

Waiting for a taste, for the scent on the wind
Just a hint of honey
To say

To say
To say
To say
To say

Keep going, mama
Keep going, friend

But most days now I don’t know why at all
…’bout anything, much less this

lemon starch and lemonade
plant me a tree,
and I’ll have it made

I’ll have it made in the grassy shade that’s full of green and wet and warm and moist and dark and cool but always green and always live and fat and happy to bee

I don't know what she's talking about, but I love her ...

Watch your children and love them the way you always wished a parent had loved you and be proud of yourself because you're BETTER and because you CAN. You do that every day that you can and the payoff is exactly as good as you can imagine it to be.

Watch your husband and love him the way you always wished a husband had loved you and be proud of yourself because you're BETTER and because you CAN. You do that every day that you can and the payoff is exactly as good as you can imagine it to be.


Watch your self and love her the way you always wished you had loved her and be proud of yourself because you're BETTER and because you CAN. You do that every day that you can and the payoff is exactly as good as you can imagine it to be.

Apple to Apple

O
Yeah! O O
You leave the O O O
at the O O O
top O O O O O
BEE, leave the O, O O O O O
i O O O
t’ O O O O O
s tha O
H O
OOK Oh, leave the O. The O? Do you know why?
?YHW
od uoy wonk
O
eht
O
eht
evael
h,
O
Well, the air is all minty now.
Cuz of you.
Cuz of you saying it was me that reminded you of mint, or actually, you said that mint always made you think of me.
Which it should, but only if you know me and not many do, but you said mint reminded you of me, so I guess between you and me, that makes two.
Two of us knowing I love mint, and right now, at 1123 in red parish, that’s one more than I had in a long, long time.
And it felt like it feels right now.
Like a red sweater blue-eyed hug and I remember lookin’ ‘cross the tiles at who we were lookin’ at while we talked about sex and love and hate and us and fuck it all except the dates.
The dates.
You have to admit the dates are weird.





THE BLUE ROOM, THE BLUE ROOM, THE BLUE ROOM
for me

I
re

quest THE BLUE ROOM
for you and for me

Either Way

I can’t tell if that’s the weather or you,
but either way,
I’m shakin’ now
Either way,
The weather or you.

Is that you out there, Daddy?
Or, is that the wind?
Either way I’m shakin now,
Either way,
Daddy, weather, wind or you.

I’m shakin’ now,
Hold me now,
Keep us right here

I built a fine nest,
We can wrap up and lie here and weather this storm.

I built a fine nest,
Love,
In the top of this tree.

Ain’t no big or small space,
Just space
In between

Either pullin’ or pushin’ us
And sometimes we collide and sometimes we repel and sometimes
Sometimes,
In the deep of this nest in the top of this tree
Sometimes,
We get it right.

Sometimes, love, we sit in the light
In the right
In the best healthy way
We sit in the light
Under umbrella or only at night, the sky is the sky and the sky gives light

We share with the sky and then we are good
We circle around and recycle sky’s Good
We give and we take. Irie cycle. Sky’s good.

As Forecasted

Reine, Reine,
Go Away
Go Away, Go Away
Some other day

Today, this day, right now, right now,
Today, Reine, be here with me
Today, Reine, be here with me
Right now, right now, this day, today,
Today, Reine,Don't go away

Today, Reine,
Please take me away.

Stay here, Reine,
and please me today.

Please stay here
now with me, sweet Reine.

The Apple to The Slog

Says the apple to the slog, "No. I don't know what that is."

Slog hears "No." Slog stops. Slog is simple.

Apple continues, "but, if you show me what it is, I'll show you how to better use it."

Slog hears "No." Slog stops. Slog is simple.

Gracious

if i can't count on you to say what true, who can i count on?
i am thin. who cares. i just am always shocked to see any kind of emotion on your face. it always catches me off guard.
rare thing.
you know what i think?
i think if one was a bee or a bird in a past life that god would surely be gracious to not let that one remember her wings in this one.
you know?
like, maybe i was a nomad or a gypsy in another time and place, but damn. i just wanna stay still now. i really, really do. i just don't know how. i'm always wanting to run.
lol! sorry to let your goofball get so deep. :)
should post this as a blog instead of mail as a letter so as to diffuse its intensity among many instead of bombarding one with its somber weight.
i shall get rid of this immediately and get your goofball back.
p. l. a.

Edited for content

So, I'm making good progress on mi casa and I love it more every day.

I love it more each day when I wake up in it, and I love it more every day when I come home to it - so, that's a good sign. Yes? I take it as such.
People are saying I look well - they're still complaining that I'm too thin, but also saying that I look good since I left him. I don't know about that. I pretty much feel like I must look like a bowl of cold oatmeal since that's kinda what I feel like on the inside, but ... you never know what other people see.
The boys are happy. Very happy, actually.
After all, isn't that what it's all about?
p.l.a.

Domestic

Remember that time,
before we were domesticated,
when we drank out of rivers and streams?

Remember that time,
before we were tamed,
when we bathed in moonbeams and danced in reine?

Remember that time,
before we were this,
when we were free to be and let be?

Remember that time,
before you knew me?

Who were you then?

Do you know?

So, that makes sense

It's been a helluva week.

But now, today, tonight, I'm much more relaxed. Mellow, almost. Not quite, but getting there. Still not sleeping very much, and when I do, I have dreams about weighing myself on a golden scale. It's awful. So stressful. I keep shrinking and shrinking. I think the scale must be wrong, so I do what I always do in dreams - I don't pinch myself. For some reason, I go to a mirror. In real life, if things are surreal and I wonder what's real and what's not - like maybe, I feel like I'm spinfalling in love & since that is foreign to me, I find a mirror. I guess my face is the only one I trust, a therapist might possibly suggest. Maybe she's right. Maybe he is. All I know is what I do and what I do is find a mirror.

So, in my dream, I step off the golden scale and walk to a huge, thick, shiny - super shiny - glossy - mirror. It's so stressful. So traumatic, to me. The more people throw at me, the more I have to juggle and the more I have to juggle, the faster they throw and I am speedrunjumpbouncing to catch up and keep up with them. I'm making my face so still and my breath even, too. Making it look like a breeze.

But, see, here's the thing: it takes so much energy. So, so much energy.

And in front of my eyes, I am shrinking. I go up close to the mirror. This must be a dream. I look like me, but the harder I stare, the more confused I get and I'm shrinking and shrinking and I hate how they stare.

Juggling. Juggling. Tumbletripmoonbouncing for all of my worth.

But, all my reserves are spent.

I'm through-er than through. I'm spent-er than spent.

Of course, it's a dream, so I dream up some badass food, and I'm standing naked in front of the glassy glossy mirror of me and somehow, now, the bathroom is brighter and whiter which makes me uncomfortable and that makes me shrink and that makes me anxious and that makes me shrink

I want to freak out, but I get centered, and since I'm not very centered at all - only trying to be - I run fast for a crutch to chase off my Weak.

I eat this humongous DagwoodJohnsonBoy triple decker sandwich with cartoonish-type colorfully hanging out over the edges meat and lettuce and probably tomatoes – and, since it’s a dream, nothing spills over the edges onto my face or floor or even my hands and the bread is warmly, softly purrfect.

So, I’m eating and eating and I watch myself still tragically shrinking and everything I do has me shrinking some more which leads me to shrinking some more.

And then …

Hmmmmmmmmmm … Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz …

I stop reacting to the mirror and the shrinking and angry stares and hateful glares and I don’t know if they go away or if I do, but I am no longer aware of shrinking or growing or size at all, and pretty soon I forget about being cursed with a body in the first place, and then we shift … and, now … what’s important to me, and to all of the ones who stare, is what we let ourselves be … not what we let ourselves see.

And seeing is still believing, but now we are choosing what we see and we only see such wonderful things and eyes full of wonder find power in beauty and we are blind to everything but. So, stronger and stronger are we and you and I and me and us. More beauty, more power, more Seeing in us, more Being in us.


So, they say we dream stuff like that in little 30 second spurts. (Which makes me wonder if dreams are mindsex – I mean, of course, they are to me; you know this; I say it all the time. But what I mean is: What if it’s like that for real real. Not just in a figurative way in a stupid girl’s head. As if each dream is an orgasm – achieved by either mental masturbation or mental copulation with another coursing, surging soul.)

So, anyway, they say we dream stuff like that in little 30 second spurts, which confuses me to a certain degree until I think about my thoughts on “pre” “diction” and what society means when they say it and what I think it really says about understanding things before you have words to explain how or why you understand it – understanding, before words – PRE. before. DICTION. words.

So, when I dwell on that for a moment.

After I really let that soak into my blood,

I decide it makes perfect sense. Tu sabe?

You know?

We say so much more when we do not have to slow down to make words.

So, that makes sense.

Red Parish Me

Red sweater
Red door
in a box, I found four
red reindeer sweaters when I
let the red door
let the reindeer red sweater red mouth red door
red parish me.

Now.

To myself, I said,
Self?
and
self say,
Hmmmmmmmmmm…

Red sweater (hmmmmmmm...)
Red door (bzz) (hmmmmmmmmm...)
in a box, I found four

Go slow, now, love
Or let me go slow
Just lie back, with me, Love,
And let’s chew up this night.

Just lie down with me, Love,
Let’s make this all right
You know and I know and the world sho do know it
But let’s make it work, daddy,
Let’s make this all right

They just know I’m through with you,
They don’t know what I went through with you
And for you...?
You don’t.
Not yet, daddy.

Not yet.

Go slow, now, love
Or let me go slow
Just lie back, with me, Love,
And let’s chew up this night.

Let’s chew up and spit out
And light up this night.

Thunder and lightning.

Black and white.

Big, dark clouds

and bright, white light.