Love For Granite

I never meant to be your next lifetime dream –
elder, unflinching fragmented from the seam of memories and dreams,
stitched from youth threaded into death, wiser to my follies
my heart grew cold, caught between fingers – I knew you, I forgot
Golden eyed sunbeam, you are blessed and blasphemy
I am aloft in the mean – somewhere between
I balanced dreams and reality upon my shoulders.
As soon as your eyes met mine, the dark in the night fled
we were no longer alone in the world – I shared with others, same as you.
The idea of love occupied us in the spotlight with shadow fantasies lurking,
I was denied light, see.
Murmurs over dark nights, alone – I questioned what floated between us –
boulders - granite anchored and sunk the energy,
like Badu – it felt so damn good to me.

Vixen

This is my chance to get my licks in.

I am an old hand, a washed up vixen.

Better turn around ‘cuz I’m a land mine to avoid.

My silenced voice

turns a blind eye by choice.

I am not worth your time.

Don’t bother to respond.

Like poison spawn,

I will infect you with love and then I am gone.

For weeks, months, years,

do you think I wait here

with tears and baited breath?

It’s not as if I lured you into a web or my bed.

I didn’t even try to turn your eye or your head.

Was it I

who told a lie to your girl?

I can tell the words were untrue to the end.

I bolstered and fed your ego.

My loss

 it cost me too much time, and time again

silently you defend

your stance as you pretend

you don’t see the energy that we exchange.

As I moved on the dance floor,

your eyes peered from behind the door

or the speakers

searching for more of my form.
Your girl walked in, and you were sure to look away,
just in time to say,
“Hey baby I’ve been waiting all night just for you,
bored out of my head with nothing to do,

but be true to you beautiful.”

Yeah, I’ve heard it before.

Is it such a chore
to dream of me for a change?
Does my form require you to deny,
lie, and not even try to remove your mask?
Is it too hard a task?
Do you think I will bite?
If you are honest and say with your words,
what your eyes have been screaming all night.
Be straight with me fella’ tell me,
did I not move you at some point that you might even ask?
To be with me, a possibility of time,
your lines with hooks sunk into mine
as a key player in your heart
is a start
or at least in the dark
a stolen kiss or three,
Would it be so bad with me?
‘cuz when your ego is down
it doesn’t seem to be.

Doesn’t matter your name
in this game
‘cuz I’ve seen your face before.
I know who you are and can see plain as day,
the bee sting that rises and swells with every play
that you make in your boredom.
A quorum
of agreement that says it’s ok just for now to get a bolster
and yank me closer.
Just this once is all you need, an egos delight
but ten years down the line,
here I find
that I could use the favor returned
and it burns like hot iron through flesh
that you protest
with your silence and avoidance.
Don’t treat me like I’m a pariah and I’m a try and get closer
to choke you out of something better.
Don’t let me be your fantasy and destiny together,
the Madonna and whore
And still I find
the door hits me on my ass
every time I find
you there on the edge of the dance floor.

Coming Out

This is the time when I want to shout from the rooftops “Look people I am doing the best that I can!” I want to get in people’s faces and say “Do you not understand that my brain is wired differently than yours because my mom walked away when I was a baby and didn’t return until I was 5 and I have PTSD from the 4 years of my childhood that I watched my dad become a crippled paraplegic, tied to a respirator and then die?” I am not “not-normal” because I like being weird (though I do) I am not normal because physiological processes  were disturbed when I was 6 months old and I was sent into an otherworldly trajectory until I was 23. There is a split in me. Sometimes one half is entirely invisible as I move through the world as if I belong here and sometimes, like now, I feel like a taut cotton thread stretched over a candle flame and my outer lint is beginning to singe. 

I am currently debating myself as to whether I should come out to the general public. No, I am not gay (though I am a proud friend of the family). Nor am I going to come out with my actual name on this blog as I still live in a small town. I want to come out as weird, bizarre, uncanny, and unusual and talk about why my weirdness exists. I want to be a proud survivor of PTSD from the 4 years I spent watching my young dad die. I want to be honest about why I can stay calm in a storm from the ability to completely emotionally detach from others as a survival mechanism to the work I have done in therapy to process the pain and anxiety of abandonment that I experienced every day of my life until I was 26. I want to stop feeling embarrassed or ashamed at my Goddess worshiping pagan roots or hiding how firmly I support feminism and how those believes are deeply rooted in my adolescent home within a schizophrenic led radical feminist cult. I want to talk about why I pull away from people who display addictive or unbalanced personalities because as a childhood survivor of mental-illness, alcoholism, physical and drug abuse I am scared to relive any of those memories.

I am a diplomatic person; I often hold my tongue in the face of adversity, but why?  Others feel no shame in shouting to the malevolence of feminism or the wickedness of paganism but I am not supposed to have an opinion, a thought or a stand to values that I hold as dear to my heart as they to theirs? Others are quick to defend the addict and to ask for evidence to support the innocence of the perpetrator but who is to defend the victim, the innocent survivor of heinous crimes committed to them behind closed doors in our homes and neighborhoods and to the blind eye of society? 

I want to be a voice to the voiceless a face to a cause. I want to stand-up and rock the mike, but in order to do that I must first be honest with myself and to others about what a scrumptious meal I can bring to the table. I have a locally grown, organic, well-aged, deeply seasoned truly mouthwatering life just ready to burst forth and fill your soul with words and vibrancy so powerful it will challenge your very taste buds as to what life is really supposed to taste like. Consider this an appetizer.

The Muse

I once was a mother to many,

I brought the tattered few to my bosom to cradle their insecurities against the shield of my own.

Spiritual paramours ran to the shade of my room, my roof-top boudoir to seek solace from the world.

I laid at their feet in love, infusions of grace and banquets of peace,

My tender arms and temperate words guided their fettered minds back to the point of rest.

My reassurance of talents brought a regained strength to carry on with tasks unseen in youthful endeavors.

I was the muse, the gentle breath of inspiration, the push to go farther, deeper, to try more.

My words on air, in writing, and whispered across pillow tops shattered timidity;

Rock stars took stage, poets lifted the pen and artists dirtied their hands with new life.

Now, the breath has carried some far and wide, to stretches of the world unseen by me -

 The muse is not the artist herself, merely the vessel to birth the craft.

Some remember the gift and return it with considerations and affirmations of time spent together.

Some deny my existence.

Like Judas to Christ,

my love is a fog evaporated in spells of reluctance and alarm.

Some attempt to return to the nest, scared to take flight on the airstream of existence, hiding in caves of false ingenuity, disguised as freedom.

The muse, squelched in the rigors of life reminisces in the sheltered moonlight, saturated in my own love for my child and companion.

I know the journey is never over but I wonder what it will bring to me.

Lemon Yogurt

 

The taste of lemon yogurt was never something I thought would appeal,
its sweet tart-refreshing flavor now brings memories so strange and welcoming,
I harken back to days of a childhood spent in murky downtown Hollywood,
the weekly trip across the freeway and up the elevator
to the ICU to watch as my father lay dying -
tubes in every orifice to keep him alive. 

 

Take the elevator down, down, down to the basement
where, if lucky, I would eat food strange and appealing in its beige crispness
but only ever offered the solitary healthy thing there.
Lemon yogurt so tangy and sweet
fills my brain with pictures of sun shining down on prostitutes and beggar women
who flip the bird at our offering of blankets and food -
give me money. 

 

Lemon yogurt like the sun setting soft yellow at the edges
to walk along this street to the only warm meal
served with a smile for two years,
in a building with an enormous burro atop its roof like a foreign mast sailing me away
for a moment of normalcy back to childhood,
to the time before the hard doom of life creeped back up
with every floor ticked off the elevator meter.

2014

 

So I Thought My Best Friend Was a Hooker, Turns Out I am Hard of Hearing. . .

In the early to mid '90's I was young, svelte and built like a brick house. Young men stood on the edges of the dance floor just to watch me dance to dark and broody music. Everything bounced and glided just as it should. Meanwhile during the day, I slaved away as a table busser and food runner in a three story restaurant. It was during this time that my friend advised me to look elsewhere for employment. My friend was making bank as a DJ in a gentleman's club, but was too uncomfortable (or too wise) to jump on the stage herself, yet somehow she convinced me that I would be perfect for the job.

One night I donned my shortest cut-offs, sexiest bra, tightest t-shirt, my ten hole patent leather Doc Martins and my best friend. We jumped into my friends cherry red Datsun hatchback and made our way just a couple of blocks to the seedy side of town, passed the round-a-bout and under the bridge to "the Club". The club had a reputation, as any business of that sort would, but I had never been there and marveled at the red lights, brass rails and velvet across the room. I was so nervous I wanted to throw-up or run away, but I resisted, the Rrriot Grrrl in me destined to demystify stripping, my body and ownership thereof.

I was going to be in a wet t-shirt contest. Yes, the brainiac, shy girl, the dark Goth one who rarely smiled, the one who would rather read than make love, was going to get wet and show her womanhood to the world, or at least the ten geezers in the front row. I was instructed to select my music from the wall of Cd's and await my turn up front for about five minutes till, then I would go in the back and wait with the real strippers. While I waited I got a crash course education in stripping and men. First, men love women. Men love women of every size, shape, color, and temperament. Secondly, wet t-shirt contests in strip clubs are there for three reasons: one get new girls for the club, two make money, three highlight traveling professional strippers and all of those reasons piss off the in-house strippers.

I saw women who obviously knew what they were doing throw a t-shirt over their more scantily clad strip outfits and do what was obviously a choreographed routine, which included acrobatics on poles. I saw biker mommas throw on a t-shirt and shake their shimmy mainly to impress their dude and his buddies. And then there was me, 19 and totally clueless. I took off my bra, donned a t-shirt and took off my shoes, as instructed by the guy off stage and when my song came on I walked, or shall I say slipped across the stage and danced the strangest most spastic uncoordinated dance to Jane's Addiction Been Caught Stealing, while holding on for dear life to the pole, all the while having an inner dialog whether or not to "take it off" or not. I took off my shirt, I did, and I got topless in front of other people, well more than two people. It was terrifying and electrifying all at the same time. I was the best dancer and worst stripper for the following two months.

It is with this perspective that I weigh the current situation of my best friends life. Broken hearted, financially broke and spiritually broke he has stumbled upon what he views as the only way to make some money and help out his mom; to become a screen cupcake. A boy who looks good and maybe does things on camera for tips.  When he first told me I thought, like the great temple goddesses of yore, he had finally risen to his calling. With an insatiable appetite for carnal pleasure I had recommended a venture into the Tantric arts in previous conversations about secondary vocational training. Alas, at the time he chose hair dressing. My friend had not risen to a calling but fallen so far into despair that he was convinced that this was all he had to offer to the world. I do not judge him for his actions, nor for the need to keep the cash flowing, but how do I express the sadness in my heart that he has lost his spirit, his drive and his mojo? In my life I have come to see that our bodies are not just temples but amazing gifts to ourselves and to others with whom we choose to share. Is a cupcake really offering a gift or in that illicit exchange of monetary goods does the gift sour and turn into a forgery?

Some time has passed since the great announcement and I still struggle with how to respond. How do I ask if he is still posing for the camera? How do I check-in with how he feels? Does this venture bolster his spirit in any way and if not as his friend, isn't it my obligation to tell him to stop? What does one say to their best friend who is making money on the sly?

The Making and Keeping of Old Friends ~ An Owners Manual

How do we move beyond the friendships of our youth to have middle aged friendship with the friends of our youth? What I mean: how do I move beyond the shape of the friendships of my youth and mold my oldest friendships to fit with who I am now? It seemed so effortless this last spring as I visited a dear friend from my early adult life, whom I hadn't seen for 16 years. It was effortless because we had both missed the darkest times of our friends lives to go be productive. After spending 18-21 hanging out and having fun we had left town in opposite directions to go to school and get the heck out of town. My friend has never gone back, to live. He has lived in beautiful places and has married the love of his life and they are living happily ever after in a little bungalow in Portland.

Although my friend never moved back, I stayed in the town of our youth for one extra year and came back for 6 months more before my complete departure. My friend and I had really parted ways as close friends even sooner than that. It was during this time that some of my life's darkest moments took place. Moments that were totally self induced and for the most part, took place through no ones fault but my own. These moments shaped many of my old friendships into what they still are seventeen years later. I have friends that I had mystical magical evenings with. Fueled by nothing but water, life, music and love to intoxicate us we talked and played till the sun came up. However, I also have sweet dear friends that I did fun lively things with, but I was so intoxicated I can barely remember what we did or who was there.   I have other friends that don't remember the simplest of times because, well, I might have been high, but they were secretly smoking speed or even shooting it between their toes. I had friends I watched, as they smoked heroin or cocaine and chased it with a snorted a line of something.

Some friends were all in the same, some were only the first two, and still others could be any combination. With the exception of those who ripped me off, ended up in jail or went totally bonkers any who survived to the middle age spread are welcome to  be my friends. This is my challenge. Who I was as an 18-22 year old has drastically changed and sometimes who they were has also greatly changed, though sometimes, well, they haven't changed at all or not very much it seems. How do we accept one another?

I recently found out how. We visit one another without judgement, take in all that has happened in the intermittent time we were apart as we combine the experiences of the past with the journey up to the present and the knowledge that we have gained. In the end, those friends who can still see me and love me are my truest of friends.

I can tell my newer friends of the last five years about my past, but to them it sounds like exaggerated fodder for late night gab. How can a mom, a librarian, a teacher have that many friends who are recovering addicts, cutters, pushers and convicts? Little do they know they are getting the edited version that I think their suburban minds can handle. For those in the know, ya you know I am all of this and so much more.