Writing

RECOVERY

Morning begins

a glass of water

a long stretch

a small courage rising:

the nerve to answer the phone

to let someone in,

grateful that time

has offered itself again.

A ritual of small work:

the dish rinsed

the call returned,

some days I scrub the same dish twice

to avoid answering the phone.

I gather in unity’s circle

in a room where hurt crowds every chair.

The person next to me

starts a sentence twice.

We wait

motionless

until they find the rest.

We read the names of our dead

under the basement’s fluorescent hum

the ones who tried

and hoped

and fell.

Our truths slowly unfold

patient

as the metal chairs we set in rows;

while the old hunger wins for a moment

somewhere across town.

The man I sat beside last Tuesday

does not come back.

Not everyone will see you as you are.

Not everyone needs to.

But who among us

doesn’t long to be free of the ache?

When goodbye sits heavy on the tongue

the only way out

is back through the face

in the bathroom mirror.

I wrap faith

around a dark stone

and carry it anyway

a step, a slip, a step

and slowly the mountain moves

a stone’s width a season

a shift once believed

impossible.

Restitution asks for quiet

and exact intentions:

a list in pencil

every name owed an apology.

Some I cross out.

Some I add.

Carrying confessions

with hunched shoulders, door to door

I sweep my side of the street.

And my opening hands

can only reach out

to serve for salvation.

Evening closes gently.

The glass rinsed.

Set by the sink.

In the stillness

the body speaks of small truths:

hunger, anger, loneliness, fatigue.

Inventory becomes re-entry

a return to self

capable of loving again

grateful

still

for one more day

to begin.

Raven and I

hand in hand remove our public masks, but the other Raven slips out of doc martins in scrap metal doorways; they are a fan of underbelly crowds, flowing applause on cement pathways spinning sounds that afford access to theatres of moneyed benefactors. I let Raven sport their dangerous mixes sounding off ambition, grinding dark goth scenarios, and write my script about the other side of growing up in suburban. Ours is a tense relationship, a ying and yang, each dancing across a stage; I, wanting rainbows to color my black and white life, while they slither out of Eden and sway from daredevil chandeliers.

Raven lives for late-night clubs under lipstick red lights, and the thrill of dangerous thoughts; adoring chic heeled laughter piercing the air like glass crashing. I on the other hand live for writing workshops and ballroom dances with a day’s happy ending cooking gourmet dinners for two. Once, I tried to escape and listen to Raven’s dark loud orbit drowning out my pulse.

For years I survived Raven’s anti Lilith grinding grunge of sharp fender strings churning femme possibilities that I was told could never be touched. Forgive her grand theatrics; she thinks herself an artist. I think it’s true she penned most of this, but I’m unsure— I sit in her shadow, just a line-break away from my spotlight daydreams hoping to fill fountain penned journals.

This other Raven dreams of limelight and hailstorms, with her face reflected and refracted in stage hall mirrors, while I pore over the ink of Letters to a Young Poet, Metamorphosis, or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Dynamic though they are, queen of an entrance, they’ve got that soft spot for corners in literati dive bars. Their broken dreams, like smudged mascara, leave marks like smoke on a blank night for empty walls. See what I mean?

Raven, never much for stillness, left behind quiet nights and happy ending bedtime stories in her high school daze. Admit their charisma, and you’ll have an ally forever. They’ll send you roses from their dressing room (possibly true), and though she never learned to play the drums to bang through a tune, her soundtrack spins like an all-night DJ behind their mask; and while she lives on stage, year-round, in the theater of self-renewal, I remain their playwright.

Navigating

A girl . . standing . . . on the sidelines . . . watching a parade . . . of family . . . a celebration of sorts
Sunday evening . . . after church . . . weekly ritual of gathering . . . those that belong . . . as opposed to those who do not
Women . . . fixed . . . in-between . . . sharing . . . dreaming . . . and watching
Do they see the little girl standing on the sideline?
Can they hear her thoughts?
She sees them . . . notices cat rimmed glasses . . . the a-line skirt . . . uncomfortable curves shifting . . . in preoccupation . . . small dialogues . . . interchanging ideas of smallness . . . small talk . . . nothing important beyond that moment
They look past the girl . . . speak to someone else . . . feel for themselves . . . in selfish pursuit . . . feigning empathy for the world . . . the girl watches . . . realizing her otherness . . . standing . . . alone . . . unafraid . . . recognizing the materialism in trying to defy nature . . . navigating its eclipse . . . feeling confident
She watches life . . . then integrates into it . . . taking a step forward . . . her momentous moment . . . transitioning . . . a single synchronicity . . . in alignment forward . . . in time . . . moving toward a future . . . telling a story . . . her story . . . a waxing . . . or waning . . . a wanting . . . as the moment of a reckoning passes.

The Root of It 

Whispers speak of secrets
Mentioned ... not to be heard
But traveling down the ear
Through a secret thread meant to hurt,
A judgment in pointed words
Pushing narcissus'
Delusions at its root
Refusing any claim to guilt.

The chin-wag venomous
Digs, push false confines, in  
Name of righteous art, as
Their toads kill ingenuity
With calculated turmoil,
Nicknamed allyship
denying their bigoted
Fear-based gossip.

Lies they tell themselves lace
Target darts to stab
Deep. Censuring voices
Deemed enemies of truth.
Denial is easier
Then facing forgiveness,
As they lift misaligned swords
Thrusting in righteous defenses.

Quietly, while the pain
Fights to understand the wound, 
I see them
in their skewed injurious courts,
Guised as collaborators
loathing otherness
if it doesn't look like themselves.

The continued hush-hush
Whisperings inure that pain
In opaque gloss veneers
That cannot be breeched, making me 
More resolved in transforming
the ossified rootless truths
into grace with enough-as-enough 
posturing to raze the root of it.

Blotting a Blank White Page 

Dawn stirs a waking body, without REM, 
frustrated tossing, back and forth, 
in nascent reckoning, as light breaks preoccupation.

Animals move in sounds, made in branches and woods,
not far from the window, where ears lean in,
awakening beating and stirring vibrations, connecting heart.

Hands shield, then rub away shuttered thoughts.

Slippered morning feet shuffle forward,
creating carpet lines, as memory of a journey,
to kitchen where hands ignore foisen, fumbling a brew.

Hidden under dark cabinets, with shaded crevasses,
next to a windowed sink, diminishing sun-rays
form silhouettes of the countertop infusion.

Dripping waters smell of nutty grinds,
as brewing takes time, and hands wait
with a “hurry up” never "fast enough" waiting.

A warning signals the move to the next station.

Pouring. Seasoning. Drinking, while
the blue room screams for attention, begging
hands to the mahogany desk to companion obsessions.

Feigning to start something, hands on the leather blotter freeze 
against a frenetic mood, but pushes forward, against trust,
clicking inanimate plastic ideas, or dodging turbulence, forward.

With blind expression, angst spills on white page, 
letter after letter, a deep blue ink, absorbing, 
creating blue walls, a sealant closing an inner room.

A bird hits the window, hands stop,
a momentary solace, a recognition of conflict,
animate and inanimate clash.

The clicking resumes, and blotting continues.

Reflection on Downtime

Photo on 7-20-14 at 1.09 PMNot sure how the times pan out as we roll along this republican joy ride; however I am sure of my feelings of depression, which sit in the very back row of my room, veiling forward over each conscious notion of hope.

To get thru the bleak flash that sneaks in during the day, I focus on putting one foot in front of the other, and not worrying in that very moment what is beyond where my feet stand.

The pall that hovers affects the way I interpret my life’s daily reflection. Today, questioning writing dirty tricks. Wondering why I ended up standing in this limbo spot; contemplating whether there is another spot I should be in: or should the conversation be something else which I cannot see or have been excluded from.

Am I a casualty of clearing the swamp of UN-notables? Should I be content with my mediocrity, and see my creative as just another self-indulgent grandiose hobby? The fear of fear plays tenacious tricks that never seem to let the thinking remain in any place of contentment. Stay on the move, traveling forward  thru the delusion to safe ground, is consciously to conscious.

I have to re-affirm that the next mountain is right around the corner, bordered by the sea of opportunity. I enjoyed sailing on the masthead with my spade flag, and want to continue the ride across unexplored oceans and byways.

Upon giving name to this angst, I realize my guttural voice – that which the stars aligned from inception – always there – was preserved by my years of neglect and brewing, and re-imagined and re-born by recovery from the debauchery. I try not to be afraid of myself, or worry about acceptance. But I worry anyway. In the end, my intellectualism understands that me is me; you are you; and they are the others. Yet only one sits in the chair and types.