breadcrumbs

You perpetrated an act and left the scene

status intact, theft covered over

leaving me to unbury the truth

with a trail of clues

                    like

the way my left foot curves inward

impotently shielding my weakened feminine

                    or

the way I always feel, deep inside,

that something only mine was

taken before I even knew I had it

                  or

my habit of giving myself away for free or very little,

a childish defense intended only to lessen what’s taken,

not realizing my power to make it stop

                  and

the fact I believe I deserve

to live lovelessly for acts I parroted in infantile rages,

desiring to destroy another as I had been destroyed

                 or

the myriad ways I self-sabotage

a self-prophesied, self-compromised almost ran

too often conquered by her fears

The body has a memory of things the mind can’t bear to see

mantra

when i was a girl
i learned to be a man
quickly as possible
for survival
only the strong survive
everyone knows that
but if surviving is just being alive
i may not be interested
as much as i once thought
failure to thrive
is nipping at my throat
hope i don’t choke
just keep breathing, breathing
a breath
a new beginning born
this time not of blood
just air   
keep breathing,
love

fundamentalist blues

i watched you hold the severed head of a so very young girl
by her hair and scream into a camera your rage and contempt
but you also looked excited
by the carnage, the scent of blood in the air.
it gave you righteous indignation
and a reason to unleash your own destructions.
i wondered if you would treat the meat
of your son’s body in the same way
or if you would cloak and shield his hideousness
and hold him tenderly with deference.
a woman in your world may be a martyr
but will she ever have your respect

escape velocity

 

i am a spirit trapped in meat

my nature to transcend weighed down

by this vessel come from animals

the taste of blood still palatable on its tongue

i seek beauty to keep from rotting

the threat of decay held at bay by a quickened heartbeat

and the will to stand up against this gravity

it’s kill or be killed but i can’t swallow it

spend my time instead conjuring a dash of infinity

to temper this finite experience

something to escape the stench of excrement

even though i know ‘the best way out is always through’

to be inescapably true

einstein

 

 

  don’t try to tell me

         what’s

                       possible

I won’t listen anyway

    here in my world

       ‘impossible’

is the work of the day

speak your limitations elsewhere

         if you must

but I’d rather you keep them

                                to yourself

   or maybe just let

                            go of them

                                            for good

fever tease

 

The heat in the old house was relentless, a thirsty living thing that burned the moisture from Harlan’s skin as well as the still, weighty air. It was so hot that every room smelled of the old wooden shingles that mostly covered the house he’d lived in his entire life; a few had fallen off in disrepair. Harlan began to feel feverish, a little shaky. Volatile. Just a natural reaction, really, a process as old as the birth of the stars. Heat, giving rise to expansion, building up unbearable pressure, consummating into irreversible combustion.

And that’s how it came about, the thing that forever changed his life. It was simply too damn hot.

the battle to own your mind

I am on a mission of self possession.

we begin our lives at the mercy of whomever made us or whoever raised us. we learn about the world we live in through their vision, their experience and belief of it. we may be tempted to accept that this is true for our world as well. looking beyond those formative ‘truths’ requires effort and energy; and curiosity, a key ingredient so feared we say it killed the cat, & they have nine lives, you know.
i come from a place shaped by unshakeable ‘truths’. these truths are magical; if you believe them, they will save your soul. you will be chosen, secure. there is a lot of comfort to be had in that space. of course, there is also the expectation that you become a doer of good, be an upholder of righteousness. doing these things separates you, raises you up. sometimes it separates you completely from those who do not believe the same truths. sometimes it separates you from your own spirit of belief-you willingly abdicate it in favor of salvation. ‘free will’ becomes ‘you know this is right.’  small worlds have small gods.
i had an on the road sales job for while. i saw a lot of this beautiful country and several of its major and minor cities frequently. driving through the rural southeast is always an adventure. billboards are ever present & with about the same frequency as the ones that are selling something for money, you’ll see the ones that are selling your salvation and feeding your fear for your soul, if you believe in that sort of thing. mixed liberally among these most serious of admonishments are giant signs that tell you where to find the booby bungalow & the porno shop. driving can be a spiritual experience. sometimes it feels like time has become a tunnel that you are surfing through on wheels. your mind is using muscle memory to control your body while it wanders and free associates, always with an alertness at the ready for the road. on one of many of these drives, & in that meditative state, it occurred to me that i really didn’t have much of an original idea about what i thought was sexy. i saw signs that were telling me what sexy is. maybe. i had experiences that i thought were sexy; but i had to admit that much of those experiences were shaped on ideas that i had absorbed growing up in a world that had a lot to say about how i should be sexy. i began to wonder if it was possible to OWN my sex, after having been possessed by somebody else’s idea of it for so long. it’s a bad feeling, realizing that you do not possess an essential element of yourself.
so what happens if you quit believing all the things you used to believe? you get busy building a new world based on what you do believe. and   that feeling, the one where the earth in front of you opens up into a gaping maw of fire? you just have to march right through it. 
the only war left that’s worth fighting is the one to own your mind.
chop chop.