Braveheart

Is it worth it
to walk through
this world with
my chest peeled

open like a fruit?

I want to feel all things

as electric as a nerve

sharp as orange rind

smell in the nose.

But the hurt 

when it comes

is armored tank

against civilian child,

callous foot on fruit peel

squashed black beyond repair.

It is safe to say

I can be brave

but can I be sturdy

enough to take on 

the stray thunderstorms

I invite to my porch?

Everybody loves

their own selves, own stories,

even if sometimes it makes

for an ugly love.

In this world

I am both alone

and not, can never be

alone if I tried.

I am meant for love.

I am made for love.

Tender like the inner

segments of an orange,

beyond thick peel,

beyond paper skin,

the little pods that nuzzle

against each other 

and burst into juice

if pressed too hard.

You can press me hard.

I am ready for bursting.

I will not be numb. 

My skin has regrown

over so many bruises.

I must trust, I must trust.

I will fail, I will fall. I will stand

again, as though for the first time,

as though I have always known how.

january muses

lavender swirls

in the darkening ocean light

and within them, my body

soon to be another year older

its textures so oddly mine

even when afloat in neon dusk waves

lapped by stranger seaweed trails

capricorn szn has been shaking me awake

like snowflake darts on my small bare face

i am learning i will always

fall in love again, i will 

always learn how to

write a poem again, i will work

i will tire, i will rest, i will work

i will carry this body to the ocean

cartwheel on the sand

hold my lover's hand

on the ride back home the little pink flowers

glow under streetlights, the bar doors are bright,

the moon is the fattest droplet of silver

stuck to the black spoonful of sky

turns out the trick is to remain

bullheaded about beauty

& brave about love

despite all contrary evidence

end of season

there have been fewer words 

written down

more spoken to friends or lovers 

or strangers

there has been less work than 

I'd have liked

but also less guilt or shame

inside

the nights are long & sleepless

when I like

and closed heavy dark when

I need 

the sea is a maze of mirrors

glinting hard

in morning or evening sun

bubblegum pink 

my skin has gone a nutty brown

except

underneath the strappy bikini where

I am still pale

life is gliding onwards like a frisbee

afloat in 

a sudden gust of high wind 

alive 

current attempts pt ii

I have been trying not to hunch,

not to wake so late, not to give in

to graceless urges

like going to bed without brushing.

Brushing itself doesn't feel so tiresome

I scrub hard near my molars so the

twisted wisdom tooth doesn't dare

infection. When I floss, I go dutifully

in a row, note which teeth produce

most scum from their shoulders.

I want something from myself.

I have been trying to divine

what the nameless need might be,

what the interminable want.

Where am I? What needs are mine?

Somebody has put me in charge

of a largish crude me-child

and I am tired of reading, of googling,

of trying to decipher what ways

this me-child should go. 

I understand, reader, that this is not

the right way to think. I am trying to mend.

Daily life rises like an unexpected wave each morning,

washing over me before I can steady 

my feet in the shifting sand.

All the time I am searching. What for I cannot be sure.

Every day I try and try, and in moments

I do manage to pull the thin blanket

of ease over me,

find joy like a place in the air,

feel my body becoming somehow significant

in a universe briefly made sacred. I am here,

I am standing, my muscles buttered into my skin.

I trust, and that trust forms around me, goldlike. 

I am here, I am here to make, I live, I am able

to love and be loved, what a blessing.

What I need to do (how I cannot help but try)

is thrash less in swimmable water,

find rhythm, let my spine be one

with water. 

sleepwords

I wake at 4, or else

have not slept at all. 

I do not disturb the bathroom dark,

I pee and scratch in dimness. 

Back in bed I coax

this body of mine

to relax. There is an aching leg

I must carry through this night.

I have been here before, will be

here again. Sometimes still

the aloneness makes me panic,

makes me uncertain, reckless.

What is it I believe in? All words

muddled without light or love.

Through is the only direction

to go. I dream of the sea, of jokes, of friends,

of sleek playful dolphins in the dapple of waves.

current attempts

 i have been trying

to find long stable

peaceful roadways 

clean thru 

the marrow

of my days

*

i saw a place once (a moment)

that went on for miles of days

storm skies gentle wavering canvas 

layers peeled to peer at the dream of time

technicolor lilypad geometry lakelevel

my body opened up like a clamshell

stuffed with undersea purplish crystal

and the knowledge that if this

were true, then this was

truth: pleasure. cycles. transcendence

it made me want more

from me, my little body

vase for a little spirit-thing

vase for a cosmos        alive

so i have been working

on my headstands, my pull-ups,

my meditation-mind, my water 

drinking, my spine, my roots.

*

daily life 

never forms

into a gorged crystal

always tatters remain

always remnants

*

but more has been crystallizing

than ever before

my heart open so wide 

my fingers reach all the way

to the ocean

from inside

*

i hold A's black watch in my hand

like a hand

and realize it will mistake my pulse for his

my life for ours

i held both A and S's hands today

as my heart spilled again

& every 

intentional 

moment alone 

has been a little gem

*

i must gather, gather,

pause

let go of some

keep what stays

make what i can make

shape what i may shape

a june song

this june song

will be a long one

i hope

time has been transforming me 

holding me up to the wind like a sail

i flutter & stutter & am wider

than ever, broad as a boat, as the taut

aloft windspan of a bat or a bird...

i am learning

the colour of honesty

the texture of it

how the air around me feels

when i am honest with myself

i am learning, or rather

relearning    the sacredness of things

of plants & rocks & ancient trees

& the sundust carried

in the hips of the breeze

i am admitting to myself

my place in the world of things

i am one

of the world, the world is one

of me, there will always be

endless ways i am tied

to everything outside

i am connected so sharply

every light of me    every shadow

in this world of things

where everything glitters

with light    memory    tenderness    life

i am learning

i can never be 

alone

*

may was a singular vast purple sunset

at the spire of a streetside church, my hand held

april each meal i couldn't eat alone

each cloud of smoke that made me spill the right words

march was a return to my solitude room

the walls decked with patterns & old griefs & joys

*

deep in the green suburbs

we were reborn in a golden egg

wet but warm, huddled, held

i felt very deeply 

the thinning of walls between things, between worlds, between us

and the beauty too 

of these walls, the patterns they made, the shapes & colors

the delicious textures of all the world around us

*

i am learning

how everything moves in circles, in snaking twining cycles,

how everything returns, but everything

leaves

how the silence allows me to enter silence

how the air lines up inside me & turns to light

how the column of light beams up my spine

like the slowest, slightest smile

i am learning pleasure is possible

along with that museless space of peace

i am learning my attention can be sharp

like a spear or else scattered like sand

i am learning, relearning, so many times over,

that i am here to make, to sing these songs,

to open like a door, spill like a vessel,

so the songs can unspool

out of me while i learn

to sing along

a january song

is cold and hard at the edges

yet arched, like a door. like we have

somewhere to go, and it has been

hard getting here. the chill is

sometimes blinding, and even

the circles of life begin to lose

their trustworthy rhythms. at some point,

everything you lose is too much to bear.

feral, we march onwards. wolfmonth,

it was called. wolflike, I feel, some

mornings in winter light and wind

outside the door. here is another

door. janus sits here, knowing 

what happened and why, what

might go wrong, what joy

might look like, this time.

in my nightmares all the same

people come and go, catching

me in some dark corridor, a moment

of uncertainty or uncontrol, a recent

fear. in my happy dreams, I jump lightly

but am able to leap and stay in high air,

enjoying new motion. sometimes I solve

a mystery, or one step of it, deep in an

underground chamber I might never

access again. it is dangerous, the same

balconies as my fifth grade classroom,

cops outside, or teachers, but always

I reach the secret rooms, find hidden

doorways, a story behind a wall.

after the nightmares I wake and pine.

I miss a life that used to be mine. this one

is working well, it shines and lurches on,

but some mornings I hold my blanketed

arms and wish they were yours. 

I keep trying to be accurate

about my pains and joys. 

I sit like a fat cloud in this january night,

singing to the thinnest slice of moon.

I am not flying, but there is joy here, in this low air.

body-mind

 

welcome, words. sometimes when they start bubbling inside of me before i even sit, i know it's going to be good. 

often these days i have been lucky enough to enter a space of flow with relative ease, just sitting down with the work and the work curling fingers towards me, tangling me inside, tangling and tangling until i realise some invisible knot has been loosened, i know something new of the world, of my work, of my body-mind and of the words.

for some weeks now my nose has been bleeding. nothing heavy, just little clots of blood when i pick at it, sometimes a drop of wet red on my fingertip. it must be the dryness, cracking the landscape of my skin, leaving me khurdura on my elbows, the backs of my arms, my outer thighs and hips. today the soft chamber at the beginning of my throat is feeling tender, each swallow tasting sickly, breath becoming sticky. i work hard at myself when i can, drinking adrak chai slowly, rubbing coconut oil with lemongrass essence all over my freshly-bathed outsides, dabbing some oil in my nostrils so i stop wiping dried blood on my sheets.

as far as i can figure the mountain pose from my yoga videos, it is about standing straight, straight, feet hip length apart but firmly rooted, thighs reaching upward gently, hands open at your side, shoulders low but pulled back like little wings spreading, head facing forward, so sturdy atop this geometry. it is mostly like standing, except doing it with grace, a grace the human body tends to forget when the mind is beeping and scrolling and marching.

mostly these days i am feeling like a body. a body aching or glad, dancing freer than ever before on certain bluish nights. when i talk or play or do it is mostly in relation to everybody around me: i am the self that fits like a jigsaw here, flowing with ease between my mama's arms and the other rooms, making my grandparents laugh and hold my hand with their calloused palms, teasing my sister and pa, giggling helplessly with Susan Didi's beautiful baby boy. sometimes i get on the phone with a friend and then i have to remember who i am, how my hours are passing, and that feels hard, and so i often don't do it. 

and the rest? all work. when i can't do it my body mopes, i watch tv and eat late lunch with my sister, i bathe for an hour with my tea in the bathroom, and prepare myself for when the work comes. i must fulfill obligations and also do homework, submit workshop letters, be a good student. i'm being a good student of my self, finally a good student of derrida, always a good student of my mama's stories. the theory i read feels like jibberish when i'm tired, but when i'm open and ready it pours over me like something sacred, allows me new meanings, gives me joy like a large object strangely weightless and invisible in my arms. and then the way paint glides on paper, releases pigment into water, settles new shadows into the world. and then the words i can make, tak tak tak, just one upon the next. it makes me smile like a child when somebody passes the room. 

who

who is this person with paint on her nails

this matte mahogany or merlot or maroon

making these hands look older than they have

before, the darknesses and lines made

visible by colour, a sudden flash of personality

when i scratch my hip or tie my shoes

how many years i spent trying 

to keep my    self intact    now look

my toenails are this greyish lavender, pale 

as early hillside flowers, wooly like fog

who is this woman with colour 

at her limbs     look how she shines & shatters