Waking Suddenly

Night particles seemed to cast broader spells as vast defenses to the needs of offspring and pages of righteousness she devoured. Waking suddenly this night with the thoughts of a genderless child somewhere mucking through swamps of parental baggage, she touches the sweat between her breasts thinking of laughing artists toting brushes; their armour armor raised in quietly shielded sarcasms of brushstroke.

Twisting in coverlets she reads a child's book. It is the tale of manic creative masks, life selections and objections that slide beneath consciousness’s sight. Choosing course chants to recite steady in the safety of her sanctioned bed, she avoids cool tiles that point to loneliness, icy windows that open to a place that functions it seems out there, in her, for her. Sirens repel her in a world desolate of masculine lines and deep rumbling. She cast them to numbness and turns her head.

The worn clichés of this night's dreams haunt her like young wallflowers in yellow dresses plastered against torn wallpaper, virgins big-eyed waiting for rings, marked bodies and babies to hold; a human melding proving worth and roping swine by their throats.

Never painted canvases float above her; she carries them through the halls of her duties, the lines of her consumption, the dreams of her never if only ironies. Colors never focused, only lines and forms and the conception of egg passions verses sperm wanderings.

Secluded words and lyrics sloughing off layers of her unused skin until blood spotted punctuation marks decorate her knees, her elbows, the in-between places nobody noticed. She prefers it this way as her alone equated asylum in her internal algebra. This safe place stroked her in places no one could reach, not her stacks of books , not the him hymns that wandered through her forehead, pulsing under her right eye, not the imaginary long dead cat purring near her feet sucking his own tail in soft nurturing repetition.

Grasping her notebook she writes unpolished far beneath shining metaphor or brilliance. She writes free of a critic or a distinguished eye. Awareness that the one that matters left this place long ago as

time

crumbles

down

her

spine

The bowl at her bedside reminds her of cherries before season. She spits make-believe pits to the floor and watches as they travel through miles of carpeted forest finding their way to polished wood floors hoping to be kicked into waiting fertile soil elsewhere, anywhere.

Her closet remained empty tonight. She can see the space, the emptiness that confirms that she never was one to leave a mark

may, 2011

Mama Never Said… that what ya don’t know tastes like honey (voice somewhere)

so ya a bored pretty girl with shallow swimmin’ eyes

mama never taught ya ‘bout ta-morrow

mama was cursin’ ‘long with the blues guitar

so ya a naked little thing are ya?

mama never taught ya that bare skin always hides

mama never cared to show ya that ya heart can’t cry

not proper

like

not like that

ya see-

it be in the intention

time blaze burns out those subtle bedroom lies

little girl thighs

ya gonna age precious one

ya gonna wither

mama never taught ya that all things pass

ya can't hold on to a perfect thing

not a clean shaved patch

not a tight snatch

not a skinned knee

not a sparkly gem

not a favorite poem

not a dirty whisper

we die

that body does

she didn’t tell ya did she?

ya can't make makin’ love fix what mama never gave ya

‘cuz mama gazed away high

turn ya head weary bombshell

ya ain’t a superstar

ya an aging flasher

high in ya own reflection

let your bird wings out

let your feather hair blow

mama never taught ya

mama never taught ya

what you need to know

star light is yours

beyond the flash of a hunter’s knife

don’t cut ya-self -up-

-just look up

& GAZZZZZZE in

mama never taught ya `bout the sky

mama never taught ya that ya pretty little body is gonna die

mama never taught ya

what ya needed to know

She joined 350 millions souls

She joined 350 millions souls

it was gained

purely

as her handwriting changed

for another round

streams carving through stone

movement changing stillness

stillness changing movement

she stopped talking

doing

sitting as it happened

cars speeding by

then gone

a gang rambling along

blow torches ready

breathing she saw nothing move to all

in

out

lungs filled

lungs empty

life bursting

dissolving into yesterday

200,000 years ago

the air is sticky

a bee lurks closely

catching the sent of her strawberry perfume

nude in neutrality

we have become observers

recalling that city dwellers walk past a rape

don't see a mugging

glad it isn't us

a stabbing

a body

a pool of blood

shuffling with averted eyes

scarves around vulnerable throats

off to the meeting

the desk

a dark corner

anywhere but seeing

we watch

boys die

bellies extend

women with tears in their eyes

maddening breath and sacrifice

before we

order a burger and fries

the waves drowned mountains of souls

as we sifted through porn

goods for sale

as it is

supposed to be?

small world

my family and me?

or global

stepping victory?

helpless overdrive

we play on the interwebs

avoiding "drama"

our haven from

glaring slaps

gutting addiction

despair empty nothing

pounding heads upon millions of walls

sun and air force breath

steps but

we prefer it

where the bullies feed

we still do anything but

see

nude in neutrality

we watch

nsj

April 2011

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Elie Wiesel

Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.

Louis D. Brandeis

the habit of a human

a ghost saw me on my moon walk

my walks have become a habit

like that of a nun

all black and robed

only my scrubbed raw skin in view

the ghost glided up the hill

and looked back over a shimmery shoulder

and I knew

my habit was transparent

my limbs and beating secret exposed

naked

vulnerable

the ghost made a decision

in the flash of an earthly moment

to see my bare hairless flesh as human

Human

Human

what human could resist walking

what human could resist the moon

what human could turn away from caring about a drowning in the sea

about the life one cannot cease to see

in the solitary moments

of a million moon walks

of a million words

of a million

poems

that

rip off the skin

I had a dysfunctional relationship with Lord (The gospel according to nic st. james)

The universe asked me to stop calling it Lord today

It keeps slipping out during our conversations, the Lord thing

I read a book as a tween, most women my age will know, called, Are You There God, Its Me Margaret, by Judy Bloom. That book changed my life. Soon after I began writing in a journal. I started each entry with Dear God. The paper became my savior. As I matured into anti -everything, I stopped with the Dear God part, but late at night I would still lie in bed and say, “Lord…., “ and talk to him in my mind until I drifted to sleep.

One day it dawned on me that “Lord” was letting little children starve to death, so I stopped speaking to him. I gave him the cold shoulder. Another day, I realized that young boys died in vicious wars in the most gruesome ways and I renewed my rage and continued the silence for years longer.

I did forgive Lord eventually, but mostly out of desperation. I made a decision that I would believe once again and that life here on earth was a mystery and that there must be some logical reason that Lord let children starve and get kidnapped and tortured by evil men. Mostly, I put it out of mind, kind of the same way I blocked out the thought that I was actually chewing on flesh when I bit into a steak or pork chop. But again, soon after, I began reading historical fiction and it dawned on me that Lord had been a cruel bastard for a long time and that he was either not real or hideously ugly and demented on the inside. I started to wonder if he took perverse pleasure in torture and torment.

Then my first born began to fall. Fall to drugs and the streets. And when I say the streets, I mean the dark, seedy streets of serious drug addiction. She turned against everything I had taught her. In my hopelessness, I again thought that maybe I could forgive Lord and show him that I thought he was everything he was cracked up to be and that in return he might pull my daughter out of the depths of the hell she was living in. That if I looked the part he might keep her alive from drug overdose, murder and torture. I did what I was supposed to do and attended a church. I even worked there. I played the part pretty well for a little while. When I bowed my head, I really tried, I promise I did. I listened intently and I heard hypocrisy and I heard that everything I believed in my core was wrong, evil even. Once again, Lord betrayed me, he wasn’t at all the Lord I spoke to late at night from my pillow and as my as my daughter fell deeper and deeper into darkness I figured that it was probably my fault because I just couldn’t quite swing it with Lord.

Damn him, betrayer, I decided now that I actually hated Lord.

Lately though,

And on and off spotted throughout my dysfunctional relationship with Lord,

The universe has been listening to me. I have found the energy and vitality ready to serve me,

Willingly

I read late at night about science and connectivity and strings of reality.

I breathe on a pillow in a small room and feel the glow of it

I chew the flesh of nothing.

And the universe and I .....we talk a lot these days and that brings me back to where we started.

I called the universe Lord again, I slipped.

And this time the universe answered back, “thank you for placing your order.”

The voice was not male or female. It was an acknowledgement of my cells that he/she had spoken in a way they felt.

A vibration of knowledge.

“You did it again, you called me Lord.

I am not Lord.

Please do not call me power

I am everything

But I am nothing

I am all you cannot perceive

And only what you can.

I am exactly what you imagine

Even though what you imagine is LIMITED

To that case that encloses your energy

I am what you have created me to be.

And I create you in turn.

It is our relationship.

I am the universal energy.

The everything that you see.

This is just what you created for me.

I am what you made me to be.

I am the direct result of what you perceive you see.

I fit everywhere.

I am what you want me to be.

Except….

I am not Lord

You are

We are

They are too

Even them, yes them

Uh huh, even him

No, I don’t care!.... EVEN HIM!

So......

You created him, we all did.

I am not Lord….

rest your vision

Close your boxes

I am not Lord

You are"

memoirs of an abnormal personality

I.

He was girlish and flashy, downright impish and I knew that when he shoved his arms together to make little fleshy titties that it didn’t matter that he had a penis. He loved that boy on the playground as much as I loved mine and we were going to play Hawaiian pig. Hawaiian pig was a name of our chase the boys game. He made the name up and as I sat in the principal’s office trying to explain why I had chased the blue eyed boy, grabbed his arm, and somehow completely ripped the sleeve off his flannel shirt, the wall between adult and child understanding seemed insurmountable. Embarrassing didn’t describe the emotion. Embarrassing was forgetting how to say the pledge of allegiance when it was your turn to say it over the intercom to the entire school. Embarrassing was being the only kid in third grade with one sticker on your spelling star and knowing you got it only because your favorite teacher felt sorry for you. (He was an artist)

As I sat, looking at the stern man behind the desk, I contemplated just walking out of the school. I lived across the street. Home was a universe away and a sanctuary in its lack of bridge to this world. I would escape into make believe like I always did. In third grade, I may not have had the words fuck this shit formed in my mind, but fuck this shit was conceived there, in that chair, waiting. I don’t remember what he said. I don’t remember if he was even mad. I don’t remember if he had talked to my mom. I don’t remember any of it.

But, I do recall the flush of rage, being sent back to class and the embryo of fuck this shit kicking in my skull and pushing the right side of the school front door wide open.

Whoooooooooooooosh.

The bright sun, the churning of my stomach and the quick steps of my feet moved me strait to my front door. Fuck this shit I was home.

II.

A brown pinstriped short sleeve shirt tucked into polyester slacks is not enough to be repulsed by a man. Nor is greasy hair, thick glasses and bad breath. But repulsed I was. What was it? It wasn’t his muggy sweat circles in his armpits that streamed wide and deep until they met and seeped where his belly tucked into his belt. It was more than the fact that he waddled when he walked and dragged his feet along in lazy scratches. More than the shiny greasy sheen his skin took on after an hour of conducting middle school concert band. None of these surface observations repulsed me. What did, was the fact, that he thought he could reach me.

That day was like any other until my head exploded within one of his lecture rants directed at the clarinets. His greasy lips shot spit as he taunted that I might lose my first chair position when I was playing third chair quality. I felt the snap. The internal bang.

Ta-ta-ta.

Ta-ta-ta

Ta-ta-ta

Hours of ta-ta-ta

And I loved it sitting in my room alone with my music

Ta-ta-ta

Ta-ta-ta

A fuck this shit cloud is what I remember as the slide of fuck you asshole from my lips surrounded thirty eighth graders in a combination of joy, shock and hell yeah. Yeah, fuck you asshole. I am sick of your ranting bullshit. We are doing the best we fucking can here. Fuck. This. shit.

And tears…

Then the door, the shove, the light, the walk home

The next day, he pulled me aside. I hate(d) that pathetic concerned look people place over their own manipulative intentions and fears

hey, I didn’t report you to the principal. (Supposed to be grateful) Is everything O.k. at home? Do you need to talk about anything? (Come sit in my office little girl) This was out of character for you.

I don’t remember what I said, but I am sure it was an apology of sorts and a no, everything is just great spiel. I knew I was supposed to think he was a great guy now that he had compassion for his students, compassion for me, but all I could manage to think the rest of that year was fuck this shit.