Anxiety--
The general
Sense of doom
Which makes the
Mailbox a monster,
The telephone ring
A blood-curdling
Scream, the faces
Of family unseen
For a day or so
Angry unloving
Scowering cruel
Fleeting thought
An obessions
Random worry
Inescapable
Premonition of
Purest devistation
Breath (gasp)
Breath (gasp)
...Breath...

Brain Shivers

Why is it that sometimes swallowing a pill is just
Do damned difficult? I used to
Buy them 40-bucks a pop and swallow
To the beat of thumping drum and bass big city music
For night after sleepless insane grin twist night
Sweating and beaming, loved and carefree. The irony...
One single white pill now each day by day
Is my lifeline, and I regard it (sometimes) with true hate...
The bain and the undisputed reason for my very existence...
This morning I awoke with Brain Shivers--
This is the term for the drug-withdrawl feeling
That occurs when I skip too many days...
Literally a shaking feeling inside my
Head, as though I've hit it hard against the ground
While tumbling a small child somersault and for a moment
Upside down sideways rightside up afraid then fine again
They come in waves throughout the day until I settle
Back into the swallowing pattern...
Not just a pill this time but a B-vitamin too because
I've let myself get out of whack...then certain foods--
Salt and carbohydrates beg to be my diet on these days
And I am a fool if I don't comply...indeed
The quick-fix complex sugar breakdown conjoined
With an upsurge of my too-low blood pressure
And it helps to get me through the imbalance day...
Like a hit to an addict but more controlled, or so I'm told...
A sedative for the anger sadness violence desperate hope
Which all comingle to create one single feeling--
One intolerable instant--
Like too much substance trying to squeeze its way out of
Some wirey sphincter...
I am fighting to not explode, knowing now that if I can find a way
To wait it out, this feeling will pass
Stay present, I beg myself, and don't cave
Into the flood of awaiting tears that so love to pull me down
And hold me there, just as the rapist used to do--
I am fighting, every day, and although it's always easier to live
When I learn tricks like breath and food and swallowing pills
I am fighting, and it feels like harmony some days, until
Still these times come back to remind me that I have not escaped...
Echoing demon whispers from the realm of the deceased...
There is No Escape...

2006 Whereabouts

2006 Whereabouts

Isn't Idealism is supposed to erode over time?
I've just bought a new timeshare there...
Didn't I get enough of this as a teen? Haven't my peers
Tired of Doing Without, and the lifestyle of one paycheck to the next?
Coffee is not breakfast, or lunch for that matter...at 27, it seems I should know this. Yet--
"I can't afford it" seems to be my choice expression these days...
Choice, mind you, over work without Heart...
Maybe I don't fear it because it's how I started out, as a kid...
But whatever the reason, I derive some visceral satisfaction
From the limitations enforced by that phrase...
I prefer it right now...
Like children protected by the clear boundaries of their fenced-in playground...
"Can't find a job" is another one I've latched onto, despite a satisfactory resume and a competent mind...
And subsequently, "Home" is a car that I just got new floor mats for, fancy ones, with a sun, moon and stars...
An enviable city life surrendered for the quiet of madrone branches...
Furniture traded in for a short stay on a friends couch and a grand leap of faith...
Strange as it may seem, it's Colorado that calls to me now,
With its fist-fulls of dirt and bleating sheep. Somehow
The simplicity of the farming life seduces me,
Despite its promise of poverty and sun-up to sun-down sweat...
For now I'm just waiting for the snow to melt up in the mountains
So I can migrate north for a month of Friendship and Oregon rain...
And then on east, or so it would seem, in time for the thaw...
Colorado, indeed...
Though nothing surprises me these days, when it comes to twists of fate...

Whiskey

4:40 drink
AM or PM...
It don't matter none
Either way...
I know what this means....
Long gone now and
No sense bothering
With simplistic tears....

It's been thirteen years
Since I drank a swig....
Thirteen years since I was a kid
Unaware of how to be truly responsible
For a child left in my care...
Remember how I just left him there?
Neglectful...
Thieving...
Drunk....
She asked me to care for her child and I
Dragged a razor along my
Inner wrist
Between loads of laundry...
High schoolers
Were so much different
In her day...

Whiskey--
I should have told her
To pour my paycheck
Straight into a tumbler...
But I was a child
So I stole it from her...
8, 9, 10, 11 AM...
Sweet mouthwatering candy....
And I...the foolish diabetic
Clueless to my condition...
Craved that sugary sweet
Retched
Moment
When the liquid lingers
Like vapor
In the back of the throat....
My face puckered
Without a thought....

I remember the static
Radio, and the
Blur of the kitchen
When my young teenage body
Had drank it's fare share...
Feeling sufficiently
Confused...

Whiskey--
The hypnotic dancer
Potent breath of an
Unwelcome kiss...
An embrace like
Boa's constriction
in my distant
Consciousness...
Present actions
Perfectly preformed
Through non-attachment...
Not a drop spilled...
Not a whimper released...

Sweet solitude
And the anesthetic effect
Along my veins
Where the sickness
Casually cut...

And yet I boast now
To toss back the
4:40 drink..
As though I've reclaimed
The sacred
Holy Grail...

On leaving...

Santa Cruz is named Saint's Crossing
And indeed my time here has been both Blessed and brief.
I wonder if there will ever be any aspect of "forever" in my life at all; and
At the same time, as I watch the false Idols I've held close to me
Drift back into their prospective places
on the horizon....I see that
There are in fact Truths still in tact. They bear little resemblance
to my expectations, and I am endlessly grateful for that.
Indeed--my life is an exercise in disillusionment.
And my present work is to strip down
to the essential core of my existence...
It is about integrity...
I feel as though I needed to Play for several years... but
Now it is time for work. Soon enough, if all goes according to my
virtually unwritten "plan"-- those two facets of life will integrate more evenly.
And so I leave this place, not with the pain and tears i brought here,
but by the light that I've discovered
within myself
which is beginning to guide me along my way...
I follow, despite the cries of concerned Others
That I must wade around a bit longer in life up to my ankles
Rather than closing my eyes and simply
Jumping in. Hear me: I will check for sharks
And shallow boulders...but
Know that I will jump...

Co-consciousness on Anniversary's Eve

I was triggered tonight, by the corner
Wooden dollhouse. For a child who's molested
A dollhouse is a terrifying thing. For me,
Dolls groped other dolls and he sat nearby
In his upstairs office, drawing up blueprints.
Probably watching me... come to think of it
Walking by, even, on a trip to the bathroom.

You fucking prick. It was YOUR idea to set it up there--
Between your office and the bathroom. Upstairs
From Grammy in the kitchen. Irresistible
To youthful female fingers. In fact I think you even
Wrapped up tiny furniture sometimes at Christmas
And held us tightly to your lap to smile for some
Camera. Flash. They were all so fucking
Blinded.

I remember how he lay there those years later
On his literal death bed--it might have been
A year ago tonight in fact. I remember walking
Down the bright hospital corridor (it's funny
How the corridor is bright in my memory).
Dad told us that he'd have tubes in him, but
Nothing could have prepared me for
His quick cold stare when we came in
Then how he looked away, at my dad
And told him to send us outside. Too cowardly
To say goodbye to his granddaughters
As though he could shut his eyes to us
And protect himself from the wrath of God
Awaiting him in mere celestial moments....

That was the last time I saw him...
There was one more visitation, but I
Sat it out in the waiting room.
No one pressed me, because I was young, and I was
Known as a sensitive kid. But
What they didn't know was, that while they
Were saying there goodbyes,
I was searching inside for one that I simply
Did not have to give. I felt so ashamed...
So heartless. Though now I clearly see
That you did not deserve my goodbye.

I resent every tear that I shed
On the day we buried you. I deny
Every daily moment and all the more
That I grieved you. I hate you, purely
And fearlessly in my memories.
I have gone back in them
And gunned you down. In fact,
I might still go and smash your headstone
In the cemetery (3000 miles away)
One of these days. I hacked you
With a machete and surfed around
On your red pile of guts in my dreams, and I
Still hear the squish with every step I take
Towards joy in this lifetime
And I dance the night away
Each time the calendar echoes your death-day...

Dollhouse Night

It occurred to me tonight
How one might cross the line.
For a single retched moment,
I understood his sickness
With disturbing clarity. I witnessed
The malfunctions of my genetically related mind...
A mind afflicted with elements of the same...
Of repetition, obsession, addiction, dissociation...
I imagined it escalating--the naiveté of others,
Dangling their lives like bait in front of you,
Dancing like children near a pack of hungry pumas...
Silent taunting voices just daring you to do it...
That far gone, and throw in a pint of Whiskey...
I could never empathize...but it makes me think--
Actually doing a thing like that...a thing so vile,
So violent... when the line between fantasy
And fact is, for some, so very thin...
There would be nothing else to do but press
On with it, I guess...
Try to bury it and mistakenly fill in fertilizer
In place of cement...
Perhaps a thing like that is just too
Shameful to face. Perhaps there is in fact a point
When man becomes monster....
At least, that's how I imagined it tonight, when
I for once dared...

Hanged (Wo)Man

If I am like a serpent, then
Right now I'm shivering, as
The snake might, in between
Shedding the last of his old skin,
And the conformity of the new...
Cautiously avoiding excess
Sun exposure, and moisture,
In attempt to protect most
Fragile, baby-soft skin...
Imagine this...and the surmise-able
Aggravation of the beast
At needing to take such care
Of that mighty body....

I am naked in this moment...

Poised on my fictitious death bed
Facing the warmth and light promised
When at last this life cage called Earth
Will free me... yet it is the moment
Before my ascension, and I am consciously
Covered by rawest wounds, fresh gravel
Ground in my greying face, muscles
Still contracting as if in fits, but lacking
Strength to stand
Or Move....

I feel like screaming but I've lost my voice...

I feel like turning back
Yet there are only ruins
In my wake...

Grrr....Xmas

Molested
By their
Habits
Of name-calling
And oppressive
Micro-managing...

Truths
For healthy
Living
Don't apply
To family...

They see me still
As child, and refuse
To honor what
Boundaries
I choose to set...