My secret name, once shame
But more than that
Its very nature of staying hidden
Forbidden
Did more damage than the naming
Today it is not a secret
I say my name, no shame
While others cannot quite pronounce it
When they make any effort
At all, at any time, along with mine
The listening, speaking, honesty
Gives my name its due value
And I can go about my day
Finally settled in, my own skin
Proud to be called…
Not an itch,
but nerve endings firing.
Not anxiety,
but gnawing in my stomach.
Not love,
but pulling towards another.
Not pain,
but muscle and bone reacting.
Not excitement,
but fluttering in my chest.
Not anger,
but heat that travels from ears to face.
Not joy,
but warm vibration in my middle.
Not worry,
but tightening from temples to forehead.
Not a sneeze,
but triggered nose hairs.
Not sadness,
but heaviness around my heart.
Not boredom,
but restlessness of mind and body.
Not gratitude,
but tears in the corners of my eyes.
Not emotions
but biology, hormones, sensation, reaction.
Not stories
but being alive.
When the barometer drops
My body and brain have already felt it
Like approaching an event horizon
My psyche is stretched and pulled
My feet fall far away
My middle pulled thin
My head hurled upward
I have no poles to keep me upright
Just a blob of wobble
Until I am sucked away from my reality
I hope I end up somewhere exciting
Or anywhere at all
Parents in the parking lot
Eating our snacks
Gotta try to be here early
Or we’ll get stuck in the back
Of the line having to keep our
Foot pressure on the brakes
But I planned and got a parking spot
So I can zone out and escape
Into NPR or music
Or the book that I brought
Text a friend to say, “I miss you.”
Or the hubs to say, “What’s up?”
So I haven’t had a shower yet
Or a real meal in a week
But I got a piece of asphalt heaven
And won’t have to watch and creep
Ten more minutes till the bell
Seems like a lifetime of a break
Oh shit! I parked all crooked
Back it up and make it straight
Then I eat my Special K chips
Got some crumbs in my lap
But at least my sugar’s spiking
So I’m pretty sure that I won’t snap
Finally the bell rings
Ants running from their hill
Where’s mine? Oh right…blue jacket!
Parking mirage to Mommy-ville
I am reconnected to my body
In a way I must have been
When I was seven
Before eight years old
Hands turned cold
And I became frozen
Backed in a corner
Of myself
For survival
One by one pulled out
The cords that connected
Neurons to nerves
But now the stillness
The waiting and watching
The safety of silence
Has allowed a re-wiring
A warm humming of the living
That carries me out of that corner
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/raining-diego-fernandez.html
There is a creature inside me
I can hear her rattled breathing
Echoing deeply with my own
She sees, hears, feels
Along with me except
Brings fire that boils my tissue
I have no choice
But to peel off my own skin
Reveal her swollen and shiny dermis
She betrays my manners
Writhing and screaming
No calluses yet born to allow for hypocrisy
I don’t even look back at that lump of flesh
I am unburdened and feeling the fire
I love her
I will bleed faster
Nerves exposed to sizzle in the breeze
But I am unbidden and seen for what I am
Fat, muscle, tendon, tissue, organ, mucous
No soul to be found, only brain
That coordinates, creates, expels, explores
My skinned human body reveals
There is no comfort, only sting and sinew
I am exposed to grit, to invasion, to agony, to life
I love her
“Portrait of Henrietta Moraes,” 1963, Francis Bacon
11:06pm
Again
I find myself longing listening straining to hear the train
Whistle when it traveled once across the tracks
Between buildings and lingered in the bare branches with the winter air
Shave and a haircut, no bits, it surprised and haunted
A secret message to a lonely lover or perhaps a parentless child
Except that it came to me and fell on my ears and made ME smile
I can’t remember what deal we made
Was I supposed to recognize?
Did I forget to answer back?
Where are you now that I am settled and waiting ready
For the joy that you engendered once, now replaced with expectation
And silence
11:07pm
(Thank you to the late painter Francis Bacon for providing inspiration where there was none.)
An open book
Cover awkwardly folded under
Pages turned by the breeze
And speed limit
Waving wildly from the center
Yellow line
Like an infant’s arms
Flailing for a mother’s affection
To spite my instinct
I pass you by
And feel less human
For not responding
http://onesurrealistaday.com/post/14433142140/book-transforming-itself-into-a-nude-woman
Space shrinks to fit my meditation; to about the size of my nostril, chest, folded legs, cushion, bench, or chair.
Objects are useful, sometimes comforting, until I drop my gaze or close my eyes.
Time is present and passes and is equally here and gone no matter what I am doing.
Sound generated from thick and heavy rock and roll, bass drum and its thumping in my chest, brings a love of life that almost lets me believe in God and Angels.
Voices can equally scare and intrigue me. My own voice played back to me surprises me every time.
Language usually leads to misperceptions and misunderstanding even when I think it starts as shared experience.
Identity comforts and the jails me.
Action is the only true testament of character, compassion, and responsibility.
Gesture that leads to touch and connection can destroy and rebuild me.
Receptivity equals immortality, falsely so, but still feels reassuring…whether deity or human.
Belief escapes me but compels me at the same time. I scoff and resist but secretly pray for its comfort.
Community is an illusion. The disillusion that there are probably very few people who safely offer intimacy leads me to honest tears…but at least they are honest ones.
Dialogue intrigues me because for so long my own voice and opinion were clouded by false pretense so that everyone else would be made okay, by not knowing that I wasn’t.
Body movement to music thrills me, saturates me, and with another intoxicates me.
Conflict can be used as a bridge to deeper human understanding and not something to necessarily be feared; when I do fear it I am usually pleasantly surprised at the end of it.
Experience is all there really is.
Gender has defined me, my pain, my joy, my triumph, my terror.
Liberation comes and goes and usually soon after I feel the most free, I am thrown into a dungeon of isolation and self oppression. Fighting it only makes it worse.
Isolation leads me to creativity…nearly every time.
Modernity is inescapable.
Rationality is equally overrated and underrated.
Person hurts person. Person heals person. Person can only ever be person. I am person.
Transformation liberates me; the offer of transformation subjugates and angers me.
Transgression, and its spiritual suggestion, tricks me.
Spiritual Narcissism terrifies me.
Hope is something I wish I could possess and carry in my pocket to refer to at a moment’s notice…but I am pretty sure it fell out into a puddle somewhere.
All of these things will save me, change (me), and fail me…and that must be okay.
Image: http://www.escapeintolife.com/artist-watch/betsy-walton/
Tonight as I lay waiting for the early stages of sleep anesthesia
Something else has descended, enveloped, invaded
It has been some time since this sadness has surrounded me
But here she is, affecting even the rhythm of my heartbeat, stumbling
My chest subtly shakes as if sobbing, my eyes momentarily dry and steady
Until tears eventually arrive prickling the edges of my eyelids
“You are not welcome,” I feebly fight while knowing I have no say
Instinctively I find my nostrils, my breath, and make some stale attempt to follow
But tonight even that serves as a tool of distraction, inadequate at best
So I relinquish to her whispered story of certain failure, death, and nothing
As she seeps into my ears, behind my eyes, down my throat, and fills my middle
I stop the struggle and allow her ladened layers to bring me to near suffocation.
We do not sleep much tonight,
There is not much else to be done when she visits,
But let her in, just as I let in all the others,
Lay with her awhile until she dissipates with the sun.
sometimesihatemycat 