New work

Here's some stuff I have been doing...

I know some seriously beautiful people.

Fire

This is exactly how I feel today.

There is no stopping what is going to happen,

and I'm not sure I want it to.

I think it's about time I get burned,

consumed, enveloped.

I can rise from ash.

who is this? I don't even know anymore.

Fall-ness

I have been listening to Brandi Carlile obsessively and I beginning to think my default musical choices are the only thing noticeably gay about me. That, and the rainbow sticker on my car. I am pretty okay with this, space from things is usually the best policy. I apply this also to my writing of course... but right now I just want to separate.

As silly as it is I really cannot wait to move down to Kent. Something about that place fills me.

I took my sister's pictures the other day... this is like her 20th senior shoot. But her beauty is something really to behold.

Day Dates

mmm what a beautiful day. I love the beginnings of things, how everything is that shiny metallic or that tempting outer shell of wrapping paper. Your fingers itch to rip all that paper, discover what lies on the inside, but for a small second you hesitate. Unsure to find out what you have in your hands or just keep it that delicious surprise. I always mean to pull the paper slow, but it never ends up like that. Everything usually ends up crumpled on the floor.

i want to be back here today.

feedback?

John

One time on the porch,
There were a thousand people with beer.
I didn’t think people could see me,
I was floating, maybe sinking,
tides shifting with the music.
Waves of flannel, swells of tight jeans,
jutting against my cotton dress
snagging me on rocks.

His eyes were the first thing I noticed,
Dry ice blue that melted in the middle,
He reminded me of Gabrielle,
archangel messenger from God.
Except with an unshaven face,
secondhand clothes unwashed,
just salty from the wind.

We didn’t talk about anything.
Just silly comments
about girls with no underwear,
the boys trying to score.
And the music.
We talked about the music.

If he delivered a message
I only just received it.
Small quakes in my fingers,
as Erica cries in my ear.
I wonder about the night
I tried to die
about the line in the sand.
Things are either here or gone.

I want the world to halt.
The ants to freeze,
the baby elephant at the zoo
to stop playing with his big red ball in the water.
busy streets with people in business suits
power suits, jogging suits, hipster suits
who forget the sky exists,
can’t tell you the north star,
or how to get home
be still.

remember how fragile we are.
We aren’t as indestructible as we think.

I have been jumpy lately. And butterflies are eating the insides of my ribcage. These old panics are getting real tiresome. I wish I could just know what I was looking for. Know what I wanted to say. I have this terrible desire to be loved by every person I meet. Like it will make up for something I am lacking. So if you see me... I will smile harder than I really want to, and try so hard to make you laugh. Just give me a hug. Tell me monsters aren't real and that I too am able to be loved. I exist in your reality as well as my own. I wish I had Joanna Solfrian's words:

Sometimes a Gray Mood Comes

Sometimes a gray mood comes

an elected valley in the heart

a flock of clouds-

it is then that the woman

walks very far to find warm weather,

a simple horizon with a sea,

a boat, and a shore that is long.

There is a man waiting

with flowers at the bedside.

Sometimes she returns,

sometimes he must go find her.

The sea, the boat, the shore-

these things know where she is-

as does the presence of death in every lily,

which is not the whole of the lily,

but something of it.

As Promised

Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal By Naomi Shihab Nye

After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.

Well — one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she did this.

I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly. Shu dow-a, shu-biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick, sho bit se-wee? The minute she heard any words she knew — however poorly used – she stopped crying. She thought our flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the following day. I said, No, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late, who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.

We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and would ride next to her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out, of course, they had ten shared friends. Then I thought, just for the heck of it, why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies — little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts — out of her bag — and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, the lovely woman from Laredo — we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers — non-alcoholic — and the two little girls for our flight, one African-American, one Mexican-American — ran around serving us all apple juice and lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar, too.

And I noticed my new best friend — by now we were holding hands — had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, “This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate — once the crying of confusion stopped — has seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too. This can still happen, anywhere.

Not everything is lost.

Something Very Human

I just took some cold medicine.... I can go at anytime. But tonight I went to Maj Ragain's Veteran's workshop tonight and my toes are still buzzing. This feeling of spirit, a unity of souls that split open something real. Something very human. A man about to embark back to Viet Nam, hold onto a long stick like his brother, talking about when he lost his faith in humanity... when he realized war means fighting with humans. Brothers, husbands, fathers, mothers, sisters daughters. Killing a man then looking at the dead man's wife. Shooting a man and looking in his eyes while he died. It was never more real than today. We began with a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye that I wish we would have read at the end. I will post it tomorrow. This cold medicine in pushing to my fingers. I pray Tom and Gabz and Laura find pieces of their soul... inside the dirt of Viet Nam.

The sun touches everywhere

It's almost Fall and this makes me happy.

Man I really suck at this. But perhaps I can redeem myself. See if anyone will take an interest in a quirky lesbian from Ohio. I am going to try and write. Show what I have been working on. My writing portfolio has snagged... things always seem more finished in my head.

I Got Religion

It was like that time we sat outside the movie theatre,

and wrote messages in chalk,

Except we drank coffee.

We talked about Jesus and you told me he is love,

I told you I was a lesbian,

and you thought I needed to be saved.

I was quiet, and instead of looking at you

I watched my coffee get cold.

“I think I am finding real love in me.

And it makes me happy.”

I still believe in God.